Does anyone know much about the MAT entrance exam for Maths at Imperial & Oxford?

[FancyDan]

We went to the open day at Imperial today as my son wants to study maths there.
He also wants to apply to Cambridge so has to apply by the 15th October.
If applying by this date the MAT exam is compulsory at Imperial (if you're applying later the STEP exam can be used).
My son wasn't aware of this and is now worried that he'll have to study for the MAT & STEP exams as well as his A level subjects.

The person we spoke to at Imperial said that the exam was a combination of the Maths and Further Maths that students would have studied in year 12 but my son doesn't start further maths until September!
Will he be disadvantaged by this or will everyone be in the same boat?

If you have the predicted A level grades, do they use the result of this to decide who to invite to interview or do you just need to meet a particular percentage to pass?

Why is it so complicated!

Thanks @EctopicSpleen , that's helpful

I would also agree with what @poetryandwine has said. Bristol is another which perhaps ticks the boxes of research strength, happy students and manageable entry requirements. In contrast, Edinburgh and Kings do very well in terms of research but the students are less thrilled by quality/organisation of undergrad provision, if the NSS is to be believed.

Glasgow is def less competitive than Edinburgh or St A’s. But surely this is only half the story. What you get once there is outstanding.

I was surprised by both the REF and GLT results but kudos to them! That combination gives a pretty picture

A little bug in the MAT test for applying Ox and IC Maths and CS joint course. OX ask to do questions 1,2,3,5,6. IC asks to do questions 1,2,3,4,5.

Like the speakers at some of the other universities I've visited, he made it clear that he doesn't take a lot of notice of the personal statement, and I don't think it would matter if someone made exaggerated claims in it - they'd still need to produce the goods in interview and STEP.

The parents' talk at CMS overran by a factor of two - it needed some serious editing. We came out to hot bored teens whose talk had only overrun by 15 minutes.

St John's and Murray Edwards are also running residential summer schools for girls, in August (betw. yr 12 & 13).

Hi all, I have also been lurking as DS is at end of Y12 and in the midst of deciding on Uni choices for a Maths degree.

We went to the Open day at Oxford and he fell in love with it so I think that will be his top choice and he will therefore need to prepare for the MAT. His other possibilities are currently Manchester, Durham, Warwick, Bath, Bristol and Lancaster. I think he would therefore be wise to do the TMUA but was wondering whether he should be thinking about STEP as well.

Some very interesting and helpful contributions on this thread and you all appear to be very knowledgeable so I was wondering if you would recommend any other Uni's excluding any London ones as I think he has already decided he doesn't want to go to London.

He is doing M/FM/PH/Chem with Maths already taken and FM to be taken next summer.

WRT the MAT DH thinks that he would benefit from a tutor to help with the MAT preparation simply because it seems to be a different style of question to the A level and because they have only just started FM and I wondered whether this would be helpful or a waste of money/time. I was thinking that if he needs a tutor to do well then maybe Oxford is not the right place for him.

Thank you all for the contributions so far which are helping me to understand the nuances of this process when discussing with DS.

Hello, @Mumski45

I don’t think there is any correlation between how useful a pupil may find working with a tutor and their ability. A good tutor will meet them where they are. Also, some pupils receive excellent MAT/STEP tuition at school, others none. I would not overthink this.

Best wishes to your DS

I think as far as Cambridge is concerned, op, it really doesn’t matter what the PS contains. They interview as the first filter and the STEP is the ultimate decision maker. I do wonder about the 50% of kids who don’t make their Cambridge maths offer - do they struggle for accommodation at their insurance? Lots of unis only guarantee halls for first years if that uni is their firm.

Hi @Mumski45, it is worth your DS checking the entry requirements of the individual unis he is interested in as this may reveal that he does not need to take MAT, TMUA and STEP to maximise his chances. For example, if I remember rightly, Warwick and Durham accept a good score in the MAT as a contributor to a reduced offer ie you don't have to take the TMUA as well. As detailed upthread, STEP is hard and can blow results day off course (metaphorically and literally).

With regards tutoring, there is a lot of free resource and guidance out there. If your DS is serious about the MAT and Oxford, he can find that and work through past papers and equivalent exercises. To do well at maths at that level of uni, you have to love your maths and be comfortable being largely self-directed - so his approach to prepping for the MAT will be a useful insight for him as well as for you!

Some online 'test familiarisation' courses are available to state educated students via AMSP. These are light touch and don't 'teach' you the MAT but help you to know what to expect and what is being assessed (which, broadly, is not syllabus knowledge but a general aptitude for logical thinking and problem solving).

You say your DS is doing Maths and FM 'in sequence' rather than 'in parallel'. Your DH fears he has not done any FM yet, but that is true for many other students and is taken into account by the test-setters. Remember also, those taking M/FM 'in parallel' have only covered half their Maths course and may have focused on non-pure units in their FM syllabus in Y12.

Hi again, @Mumski45

@PerpetualOptimist is a font of information, useful perspectives and good values. Everything she says is sensible ad ever.

However in this instance (for those lucky enough to afford it) I see tutoring as the analogy of attending drop-in office hours at university. IME those that frequently attend come on by leaps and bounds over the duration of a module. They say they have ‘learnt how to think’ about our (STEM) subject. These students typically perceive themselves as struggling at the beginning of term, then go on to do well, sometimes very well indeed. The most extreme case IME was a brilliant first term student who simply couldn’t believe in their own ability.

A good tutor can give your DS a similar experience by meeting him where he is. This is independent of his ability level. Again I appreciate that for most, finances will play a role in the decision. If you are near a research university I would suggest contacting the School of Maths and asking for recommendations amongst doctoral students who might be interested in the work (and do a good job). More reasonable rates than a professional tutor, greater maths ability and a decent amount of classroom experience if you specify that.

It is intriguing to observe that no interviews have been conducted for all applicants whose MAT scores fall between 91-95, and no offers have been given to those with a MAT score exceeding 96 in the past few years, as per the MAT feedback.

When I was at Cambridge, my DoS said that our college's policy was that Personal Statements were not read. Other colleges do read them, but don't really care about what you write, as long as it's not glaringly terrible/obviously fabricated.

The logic is that they only care about your mathematical ability, which they will learn about through the interview, and then STEP. They simply do not care about extra curriculars, and the writing quality of your PS is not indicative of anything as there are far too many services these days that write PS's for people.

As a whole, the advice I was given by admissions people before my application was to write my PS for whatever other universities I was applying to, as some do care, but Cambridge would not.

(As a side note, I didn't even get a hello in my interview, I sat down and the interviewer immediately started asking maths problems)

My DS is planning to attempt Oxford/MAT. He is in a local comp and is preparing for MAT doing past papers, Edinburgh is difficult to gauge with the entry requirements as English/Welsh students who have done further maths often go straight into year 2. Something to flag up for those of you looking at Lancaster (DS really liked it). Further Maths isn't essential, but the bulk of entrants have it (?70%). They also said at the open day that they want applicants to take the TMUA and submit the results (it's not compulsory, but reading between the lines it will increase your chance of an offer if you have a decent result in it,). They don't look at MAT results. This year TMUA is the day before the MAT so it's possible to do both.

For those wanting to sit MAT I would recommend checking out the MAT livestream https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/study-here/undergraduate-study/maths-admissions-test/mat-livestream (can't remember if I have already linked to this!).

Kevin Olding offers free MAT and TMUA courses on his Mathsaurus website. I haven't checked them out, but his free JMC course was very good!

Posting on this thread hoping that I catch some interested people!

The STEP Support Programme is running a series of webinars in November for students who have applied to Cambridge - the idea is to help demystify interviews and also guide students in how they can prepare.

For details and bookings see https://maths.org/step/events

Should have added "applied for Maths at Cambridge"....

Thanks @Pallando my DS unfortunately can't do Wednesday evenings, should he sign up anyway to get access to the recordings?

Also, slightly cheeky question, DS found out this week he has qualified for BMO1 - should he use the Cambridge specific PS to mention this on his My Cambridge Application? There isn't anything else he would want to mention.

Please do sign up for the recordings! (My aim is to put them onto the website eventually, but I am hoping to email them around the day following the webinars). He can also email questions about interviews in and I'll try and cover them.

No harm in mentioning the BMO1 - but don't be surprised if he doesn't get asked about it (or in fact is not asked anything about his personal statement - some interviewers do, most stick to asking maths questions).

Just dipping my toe back into this thread ( and screenshotting all the useful info!) as DD has now started year 12 and is really enjoying her maths/ FM - so is currently very set on maths at uni. In terms of her cohort she is one of only 2 girls in her class but both her teachers are enthusiastic women which I am pleased about. She will try for Oxbridge/ Warwick if things continue to go well ( obviously early days) , but we’ve talked about making sure she is happy with other choices as well. She says she has found some courses that have a year abroad or a language module which appeal to her. I wondered if people on this thread have suggestions for interesting maths course with a twist we could look at?

What kind of a twist, @Cathpot ? Maths with MFL is a recognised Joint Hons programme. More traditionally Maths can be combined with Physics, Computer Science, Economics, Finance, Actuarial Science …. In established Joint Hons degree programmes. There is also Statistics, Biostatistics, Data Science, a few rather mathemtical Cybersecurity programmes…

Does DD have a particular second interest?

@Cathpot I know of a student doing Maths & Philosophy at Oxford which I thought sounded interesting!

How very cool, @BackToWhereItAllBegan

Thank you for your answers @BackToWhereItAllBegan @poetryandwine
Just had a chat with her- she is thinking along the lines of maths with ‘something not maths’. At the moment I don’t think she has enough maths experience to know what she’s going to really like at the next level up and maybe then maths with a sensible maths related other subject might appeal more. Maths and philosophy sounds amazing but I can’t imagine the workload for joint honours at Oxford!

She isn’t doing a language at A level- she’s been gently learning at Japanese by herself for a few years . I presumed ‘maths and beginner Japanese’ would be waaay too niche but she’s just told me she thinks there is a course at UCL with that option!

To be honest it’s been a useful nudge just having this conversation as she’s gone off to have a hunt about online herself. She is hugely self motivated for things she enjoys so once she finds her path she will be set.

For students with straight maths degrees do they usually feed easily into the workplace or do people specialise post grad? I realise I’m being lazy just asking on here but at the moment I am mostly in the dark. We both like a plan and at the moment I have very little sensible advice aside from you need a city you will enjoy and a course you are keen on.

Maths and Phil is not just at Oxford, @Cathpot !