IB Results Day 2026: What to Do Next — University Open Days, Campus Visits & How to Get There

The date is 6 July 2026. Somewhere between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., depending on your time zone, a notification arrives. Your IB results are live.

For some students, it's the confirmation of everything they worked for. For others, it's the beginning of a new set of decisions — appeals, clearing, reconsidering options. For almost everyone, it triggers the same immediate next step: figuring out what comes next, and getting there.

University open days. Campus visits. Offer confirmations. Accommodation viewings. The weeks after IB results day are among the most logistically intense of a young person's life — and they almost all involve travel. Lots of it, to multiple cities, often at short notice, frequently with a parent in tow and a list of questions scribbled in the notes app.

This is the guide to navigating that period — practically, financially, and with as little stress as possible. And at the centre of all of it is one booking platform that makes every journey simpler: Trainline.

What Happens on 6 July 2026

IB results for the May 2026 session will be released on 6 July 2026. This single date sets off a chain of events that unfolds rapidly across the following days and weeks.

For students who have already received conditional offers from UK universities — the most common scenario for IB graduates applying through UCAS — results day is the moment those offers are either confirmed or not. Offers typically require a specific total IB points score, often with conditions on Higher Level subjects. When results are released, UCAS automatically processes the comparison between your grades and your offer conditions, and by mid-morning on results day, most students know whether their first-choice place has been confirmed.

What follows is a compressed and often intense period of decision-making. Students with confirmed first-choice offers begin thinking seriously about accommodation, freshers' week, and — for many — visiting their campus properly for the first time, having applied during a period when open day attendance wasn't always possible. Students who narrowly missed their grades may be in conversations with admissions offices about whether their offer still stands. Students entering Clearing are navigating an entirely different and fast-moving process, which may involve visiting new campuses they hadn't previously considered.

All of these paths lead to the same practical outcome: you need to get places, quickly, efficiently, and at a cost that makes sense on a post-IB-student budget. Trainline is UCAS's recommended platform for planning student journeys around the UK — and for very good reason.

Open Day Season: The Rail Network as Your Campus Tour Vehicle

Open day season across UK universities runs from June through September, with the heaviest concentration of events falling in the weeks immediately before and after results day. Universities know that results day triggers a wave of campus visit requests, and most have structured their open day calendars accordingly — offering multiple dates through July and August for both confirmed offer holders and students in Clearing.

The cities where UK universities are concentrated are, without exception, very well connected by rail. London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol, Nottingham, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Cardiff, Durham, Southampton, Exeter — the list of major university cities is essentially a map of the UK's InterCity rail network. If you have a Trainline account and a 16-25 Railcard, you can reach the campus of virtually any UK university from virtually anywhere in the country for a fraction of what it would cost by car, and in much less time than it would take to drive.

That matters because open day season, for many families, involves not one or two visits but four, five, or six — spread across different cities, sometimes on consecutive days or weekends. The cumulative travel cost of doing that by car, with fuel and motorway tolls and city-centre parking charges, adds up fast. The cumulative cost of doing it on advance train fares booked through Trainline, with a 16-25 Railcard discount applied automatically, is a different number entirely.

The 16-25 Railcard: The Most Valuable Thing an IB Graduate Can Own Right Now

If you are between 16 and 25 years old and you don't already have a 16-25 Railcard, stop reading this and go get one. It saves you thirty percent on most rail fares across the UK, costs thirty pounds for a year, and pays for itself after three or four journeys. For a student making multiple university visits over the summer, it is not optional — it is essential.

The 16-25 Railcard is available through Trainline, where it's integrated directly into the booking process. When you add your railcard to your Trainline account, the discount is applied automatically every time you search for a fare. You don't need to remember to activate it, enter a code, or present a separate card at the barrier — it's built into your booking from the moment you search.

To put the saving in concrete terms: a flexible same-day return from London to Manchester without a railcard might cost upwards of £150 at peak times. An advance fare booked through Trainline with a 16-25 Railcard discount, planned a week or two in advance, can bring that same journey down to under £40. On a student budget, in a summer where you might be making five or six of those kinds of journeys, that difference is enormous.

The 16-25 Railcard also applies to travel with up to three adults travelling with the cardholder, at the same thirty percent discount — which means parents accompanying their student on open day visits benefit from the railcard too. A family trip to a university campus becomes meaningfully cheaper when the booking is made through Trainline with a railcard attached.

Planning Your Open Day Visits: A City-by-City Guide

Here's a practical breakdown of the major UK university cities and what to know about getting there by train.

London

London is home to more universities than any other city in the UK — UCL, King's College London, Imperial, LSE, Queen Mary, Goldsmiths, City, and many more. Each has a different campus location, and navigating between them on open day visits requires knowing which London terminal to arrive into and which tube lines connect to the campus.

Trainline handles the mainline booking into London from anywhere in the UK — King's Cross, Paddington, Euston, Waterloo, Liverpool Street, and Victoria are all served by national rail services bookable through the app. Once in London, your Trainline mobile ticket has already got you through the barriers, and the Underground takes you the rest of the way.

One London-specific piece of advice: book the first train of the morning on open day dates. University open days in London draw large numbers of visitors, and the combination of morning rail travel plus underground connections means earlier is almost always better. An 8 a.m. arrival in London gives you the whole day; a 10 a.m. arrival puts you in competition with every other family who had the same idea.

Manchester

Manchester is one of the UK's largest and most vibrant student cities, home to the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University, both of which attract significant numbers of IB graduates each year. Manchester Piccadilly is served directly from London Euston on the West Coast Main Line — a journey of just over two hours on fast services — and from Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, and Liverpool on cross-country routes.

Trainline's price calendar is particularly useful for Manchester open day visits. If your chosen date is flexible, the calendar shows you fare prices across a range of dates and times, making it easy to identify when a cheaper advance fare is available. The difference between travelling on a busy Saturday morning and a quieter midweek date can be thirty or forty percent on the same route.

Edinburgh

For IB graduates considering Scottish universities — the University of Edinburgh, St Andrews, Glasgow, or Aberdeen — the East Coast Main Line from London King's Cross to Edinburgh Waverley is one of the great British rail journeys. LNER services cover the journey in four and a half hours, and advance fares booked through Trainline are often significantly cheaper than same-day prices.

Edinburgh Waverley is, uniquely among major UK railway stations, located directly in the heart of the city, a short walk from the Old Town and most of the university's central buildings. You arrive off the train and you're immediately in the city. For families visiting from the south, the train is not only the cheapest option — it's also, when you factor in the complete door-to-door journey, very competitive with flying on time.

For students considering St Andrews specifically, Trainline handles the connection through Edinburgh to Leuchars, the nearest mainline station, from which buses run directly to the town.

Bristol

Bristol has emerged as one of the UK's most popular university destinations over the past decade, with the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England both drawing strong applicant pools from IB schools across the country and internationally. Bristol Temple Meads is served from London Paddington on Great Western Railway services — under two hours on the fast trains — and from Birmingham, Cardiff, and the South West.

One Bristol-specific note: the city centre has limited parking and significant traffic congestion, particularly on weekends when open days typically fall. The train is genuinely the better option here for practical as well as financial reasons. Book through Trainline, arrive at Temple Meads, and the university campuses are reachable by bus, taxi, or a twenty-minute walk depending on your destination.

Nottingham

Nottingham is a significantly underrated university city — home to the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent, both of which have strong international profiles and attract IB graduates with a wide range of subject combinations. East Midlands Railway connects Nottingham to London St Pancras in around one hour forty-five minutes, and Trainline books the service clearly and cheaply with advance fares.

The University of Nottingham's main University Park campus is one of the most beautiful in the UK — a genuinely compelling reason to visit in person rather than relying on the virtual tour. Getting there from the station takes around twenty minutes by tram, which runs directly from Nottingham city centre to the campus stop.

Birmingham

Birmingham's universities — the University of Birmingham, Aston, and Birmingham City — make it a natural stop on any open day tour of the Midlands. New Street station is one of the best-connected rail hubs in the UK, sitting on the West Coast Main Line with direct services from London Euston, Manchester, Edinburgh, and Bristol. Journey time from London is around one hour twenty minutes on fast services, and Trainline consistently surfaces competitive advance fares on this heavily served route.

For International IB Students: Getting to UK Campuses from Europe

A significant proportion of IB graduates applying to UK universities are not based in the UK at all. Students at international schools in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands routinely apply to UK universities through UCAS, and for them, results day triggers not just domestic travel planning but international travel planning.

The good news is that Trainline covers exactly this scenario.

From France: The Eurostar from Paris Gare du Nord to London St Pancras is the obvious route, and it is bookable directly through Trainline. Journey time is two hours and fifteen minutes. Advance fares, booked well ahead of your open day date, are significantly cheaper than walk-up prices and often cheaper than equivalent flights when you factor in airport transfers on both ends. From the south of France, high-speed TGV services to Paris connect with the Eurostar for a same-day London arrival from cities like Marseille, Lyon, or Bordeaux.

From Spain: TGV and AVE high-speed services connect Madrid and Barcelona to Paris, from where the Eurostar continues to London. Trainline handles cross-border European bookings, so a student in Madrid planning a campus visit to Edinburgh can research and book the entire journey — Madrid to Paris to London to Edinburgh — in a single session on the app.

From Italy: Frecciarossa high-speed services connect Rome and Milan to the European rail network at its northern edges, with onward connections through Paris to London via Eurostar. For Italian-based IB students visiting UK campuses, Trainline's European coverage means the whole journey can be managed in one place.

From Germany and the Netherlands: Direct Eurostar services from Amsterdam to London launched in recent years and are bookable through Trainline, making the journey from Amsterdam Centraal to London St Pancras a straightforward three-hour rail trip. Students in Germany connect via Brussels or Paris for the Channel Tunnel crossing.

The underlying principle is simple: wherever you are in Europe, Trainline is the platform that connects you to UK campuses without requiring you to research and register with multiple national rail operators. One account, one app, every route.

How to Use Trainline's Price Calendar for Open Day Planning

One of Trainline's most practically useful features for open day planning is the price calendar — a tool that shows you fare prices across a range of dates rather than just the one specific date you've searched.

Here's why this matters for university visits.

Open days at most universities are offered on multiple dates across the summer. The University of Manchester might have open days on three separate Saturdays through July and August. Bristol might offer a Wednesday option as well as weekend dates. If you have flexibility about which date you visit — and many students do — the price calendar lets you make a financially informed choice about which date to book.

The difference in fare can be significant. A journey that costs £80 return on a popular summer Saturday might cost £45 on a Tuesday three days later. If you're visiting four or five universities over the summer, making that kind of saving on each journey adds up to several hundred pounds — money that goes toward accommodation deposits, freshers' week costs, or the post-results celebration you've thoroughly earned.

To use the price calendar on Trainline: enter your origin and destination, and instead of selecting a fixed date, look at the fare calendar view that shows prices across the surrounding dates. Choose the date that works for your schedule and your budget. Book. Done.

The Results Day Emotional Landscape — and Why Logistics Matter

It would be incomplete to write about IB results day purely in logistical terms without acknowledging what it actually feels like.

Results day is one of the most emotionally charged days in a young person's life. For students who get the grades they needed, it's a rush of relief and joy that has been two years in the making. For those who narrowly missed, it can be a day of real grief — the disappointment of seeing a path you'd been imagining for eighteen months close, even temporarily, even if other paths open.

What makes a difficult results day harder is feeling unmoored and uncertain about what to do next. And what makes a good results day better is having a sense of momentum — a clear sequence of next steps, something to move toward.

Travel is part of that momentum. Whether you're heading to your confirmed university city to walk the campus as a future student for the first time, or you're visiting a clearing option that's just become newly interesting, or you're simply getting out of the house and moving because movement is how you process things — having a straightforward way to book and manage that travel matters more than it might seem.

Trainline on your phone means that no matter what results day brings, you can be on a train within hours. You can be somewhere new by the afternoon. You can be standing in front of a building that might be your home for the next three years, imagining it, making it real. That transition from abstract future to concrete present is one of the most important things open day travel does — and Trainline makes it available at the tap of a screen.

A Practical Timeline: From Results Day to First Day of Term

To make this concrete, here's a suggested timeline for managing university visits and travel from results day through to the start of the academic year.

6 July — Results Day Check your results. Check your UCAS Track status. If your first choice is confirmed, email or call the admissions office to confirm and ask about open days or welcome events for offer holders. If you're in adjustment or clearing, begin researching options immediately — don't wait.

7–14 July — Immediate Response Window Book your open day or campus visit. Use Trainline to find advance fares for your chosen date — the earlier you book after results day, the better the fare you'll secure. Apply your 16-25 Railcard discount. Download your ticket.

July–August — Open Day Season Make your campus visits. Use Trainline's price calendar to find the best fare on each journey. For international students travelling from Europe, book Eurostar connections and onward domestic rail services through Trainline in a single booking flow.

August–September — Confirmation and Preparation Once your university place is fully confirmed, begin planning your move. Trainline is useful here too — whether you're transporting belongings by train, making a final pre-term visit to sort accommodation, or travelling to freshers' week events. Student discount fares apply throughout.

Late September — First Day of Term You're there. The journey — in every sense — is complete.

Why Trainline Is the Right Partner for This Moment

There's a reason UCAS recommends Trainline as a go-to app for students planning university journeys. It's not just breadth of coverage or competitive fares, though those matter. It's that Trainline understands the specific shape of student travel — multiple journeys, limited budget, need for flexibility, reliance on a mobile ticket rather than printed paper.

The 16-25 Railcard integration means discounts are automatic. The price calendar means budget-conscious students can make informed choices about timing. The European coverage means international IB graduates aren't left navigating foreign rail websites in unfamiliar languages when they need to get to a UK campus. And the mobile-first experience means that on a day as emotionally full as results day, booking a train is one thing that doesn't require effort.

For IB graduates in 2026, the weeks after results day are the beginning of a new chapter. Every chapter needs a first journey. Make it a good one — plan it, book it in advance, save money where you can, and travel with the confidence that comes from having everything sorted.

Trainline is how you get there.

Final Thought: The Train Is Where the Next Chapter Begins

There's a particular quality to a train journey taken at a pivotal moment in your life. The movement, the changing landscape outside the window, the sense of transition — of being neither where you were nor yet where you're going. It's a liminal space, and it's a good one.

The journey to your university campus on open day — whether it's two hours on the East Coast Main Line to Edinburgh, or an afternoon on the Eurostar from Paris to London — is not just logistically necessary. It's the moment you start to make your future feel real. You're moving toward it. You're investing in it. You're showing up.

Get your 16-25 Railcard through Trainline. Book your open day travel in advance and save on every fare. Use the price calendar to find the cheapest day. Download your ticket and arrive calm.

The results are in. The next chapter is open. The train is waiting.

Plan every university open day visit across the UK and Europe — book in advance with Trainline, apply your 16-25 Railcard discount, and arrive ready for what comes next.