Maths at University

[autrejour]

My son is in Year 12 studying Maths, Further Maths , Physics and Economics at A level. He does not know what he wants to do career wise but he would like to pursue some kind Maths subject at University. I know we will need to start looking soon for courses and Universities and I would like to help him but completely lost on where to start. He is also quite sporty.
Would you wise ladies be able to help ? What are good Maths subjects for good career prospects and also which Universities should we be looking at. Sorry, just started looking and a bit clueless.

If he's sporty too I would say Bath. An excellent university and great sports teams and facilities!

@yoyo1234 I hope I didn't confuse uog with my typo on the other thread. MAT is taken in November of Y13 and it is absolutely necessary to practice for it. DS started at Easter of Y12, also practicing lots of Olympiad problems. All the past papers are on the Oxford website so plenty of material. DS also did past STEP papers for more practice (but he was very single minded!). It paid off and he scored in the top 100 of MAT scores thus securing an interview If your DS is interested in Maths please dm me with any questions

@yoyo1234, both STEP and MAT are very difficult. There’s really no advantage in taking them early. Working on them early, definitely.

I just wondered if doing say STEP early would show Cambridge you were serious (especially if maybe not an all-rounder) and aid getting you even to interview.

I don't think it is beneficial YoYo. I'm going to tag in @Pallando to see if they can give more official advice. How old is your dd now?

I'm also happy to talk over pm about cambridge and maths from my v. limited experience.

No don't take early. Prepare early as others have said. And thoroughly. If your school offers support, brilliant; if it doesn't, seek it out.

I think (from information I have gained here-thank you wise Mumnetters and from the Uni websites and from friends 🙂) that Oxford and doing MAT at normal time may be the best approach and offer best chance of at least getting to interview with variable GCSE grades.

My DC looked at MAT/PAT papers last night and really liked them and their style saying they were like UKMT /Olympiad style.

We had a talk from college recently and am now aware of the existence of the TMUA which I hadn’t heard of before. I’m still getting my head around the different tests and who requires what etc but getting there.

What is the TMUA ? Oh help more to try and find out about!

Just looked at TMUA it seems results are the 39th November so it would be hard to give results in eg a Personal Statement to help get an interview in the first place.

Oops 30th November !

@yoyo1234 I would not recommend doing STEP early, especially now that STEP 1 has gone! I would recommend starting to prepare for STEP in year 12 though maths.org/step/assignments is a good place to start.

I'm not sure you can take MAT early - I think it is only open to those with an offer from Cambridge and/or Imperial?

I believe you can take TMUA early, though this would be very early on in year 12 so maybe not the best of ideas. Again, you need to practice for TMUA.

Sorry that's a bit short, I've not got much time this morning! Please do message/@ me if there are any questions you want me to answer.

@autrejour the Cambridge maths open days are open for booking - see www.maths.cam.ac.uk/undergrad/admissions/openday

My son is doing Maths (at UCL) - just finishing first year. He's absolutely loving it and really pleased he chose it. He did similar subjects to your son and had a similar decision to make and he's really pleased he did.

He's also very sporty but the sport has been a disaster this year due to Covid. Not sure what it will be like next year. It's the first year of his life that he's not been able to play sport and I must admit, he found that very tough!

I think it's also important to think about what type of experience your son wants at university. My other child is bright but wanted to enjoy herself more so went to Birmingham. Her friends that went to Oxbridge are having to work their socks off whilst she had a ball of a time and tbh has not found it hard to get work afterwards. In hindsight, she's really pleased with the decisions she made. My son is far more academic so is happy he's gone somewhere that plays to his strengths too. As others have said, don't be deceived in thinking all courses are the same - it's really important that he looks at the course and sees what he might like in it as they are all different. In the end, you just want them to be happy!

I did robotic engineering for my first degree. Lots of maths but also lots of coding, statistics, even psychology. It’s a great degree to get an all round sense of the subject and the employability after the degree was almost 100%.

@pallando , thank you so much for the Cambridge open day. I have registered him for this Saturday.
@ParticularlyThistle great advice. My son is more like your child who went to Birmingham... I think. He is bright and very conscientious with his work but he does enjoy having fun and will want this to continue at University.
@ShutUpAlex, robotic engineering sounds fabulous . He did Computing science at GCSE and got an 8, really enjoyed coding but not anything else hence not taking it at A level.