TMUA - January or october?

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DS would like to apply to LSE, warwick and imperial and they all ask for the TMUA.
we did not know about this so he is only starting to work on this jow.
there are two options: sitting the exam in October or in January.
i am aware he needs to apply for uni end of October
what are the pros and cons of sitting the exam in Jan rather than in October?

Yes, they need a separate room so booking can’t be done online and you have to go through this convoluted process of letting them know you’re ready to book then waiting for a call that doesn’t come, buying a voucher that takes days to process, and waiting for more contact. Getting rather worried about it all. Also Londoners and my student wouldn’t cope with driving to Colchester for an exam!!

What??? !! Colchester??
DS usually has a quiet room and 25% extra time. He is not interested in the quiet room so if we can only apply for extra time and not gobto colchester that’d be great…

So the fiddly arrangements seem to only be if you need anything other than time-based adjustments (ie separate room) so if they’d cope without, I wouldn’t bother as it’ll make your life a lot easier!! However I did read that the exam rooms can be quite noisy and busy with people coming and going for different exams - it’s not like a school exam, eg they may have people in doing driving theory or other stuff who are coming and going frequently. So think carefully whether your child would cope with all that extra disruption…

Bless her, she was vomiting from car sickness on the way to the exam. Dh actually booked the appt with her after I got the JCQ paperwork from school. Not sure what they had to do but we were def surprised that Colchester was the only option. But she has a Warwick offer (also had UCL) so it all ended up ok (well, I guess we actually find out on results day). Oh, a spider also ran towards her in the car on the way up…

We’ve managed to book october in Basildon 😭. DS has 25% extra time.

Basildon is one hour away by car so not too too bad… i
doubt i’ll find a Gails there though…

I am not sure why they don’t have extra time venues in London. I wish dd had stayed in a close hotel overnight. We know she gets car sick but sometimes the ‘smell’ of the car is too much for her. Traffic was horrible, early morning start. Good luck to your yp!

You might find this info useful on sitting admission tests in a Pearson centre on the whiteboards etc

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/higher_education/5420726-anyone-who-has-taken-the-tmua-and-or-mat-fairly-recently-can-you-help

Just to add in case anyone else is deciding between the two sittings, for Oxford/Cambridge applicants applying for a course which requires the TMUA, the October sitting is compulsory (apart from the specific January-deadline mature/Foundation Year exceptions).

For LSE/Imperial/Warwick etc, UAT-UK actually says there is no admissions advantage to sitting in October rather than January, although obviously October can still be preferable practically as you get it out of the way earlier and have your result sooner.

My son sat the TMUA in the last admissions cycle and got a 9.0, and he found having it done earlier useful.

Also worth noting for anyone needing access arrangements: for the October 2026 sitting the deadline to request them is 14 September, and test booking closes 28 September. UAT-UK says access-arrangement requests can take up to 10 working days to review.

DS is thinking of cancelling the october sitting and book January instead as he is suddenly panicking at how much he has to do before school starts…