STEP (maths at university)

[STEP234]

Hi all,

Long time member, but have set up a different account for this!

If you know of anyone in year 13 (or year 12) applying (or thinking of applying) to study maths at university then they should google "STEP support programme". This is a scheme run by the University of Cambridge to support students in preparing for STEP.

STEP is a maths exam taken at the end of year 13 which is MUCH harder than A-levels, and many schools cannot support their students (which is why the programme started up).

STEP forms part of offers to study Maths (and sometimes other subjects) at Cambridge, and quite a few other universities (including Warwick, Bath, Lancaster...) are making a reduced A-level offer if a student gets a certain grade in a STEP exam as well.

[LittleHo]

Thanks STEP234 My other dc have done different subjects so it is nice to know the system ahead of time.

[user918273645]

So for both Oxford and Cambridge males are more likely to get in than females, but females applying to Cambridge are more likely to get in than if they apply for Oxford. However there is a bigger gap between male and female success rates at Cambridge.

You're not worried also by the significant discrepancy between application numbers of women at Oxford and Cambridge?

And would you like to give your view on the significant gaps between male and female success rates at both universities?

[STEP234]

LittleHo STEP is usually sat at the students school and the school usually arranges entry for the student (though some schools might ask you to pay the fee).

The dates and costs for this year have not been released yet, but last years details can be found on the Admissions Testing Service Website (where you can also find info on MAT, BMAT etc.)

Allthebestnamesareused no problem - it's good to know the standard offer is being used (but as you say most people will be getting A A A* anyway).

[Allthebestnamesareused]

Sorry to be slow in clarifying myself. I am currently travelling abroad with limited internet access.

[Allthebestnamesareused]

I am sorry you have misunderstood the point that I was trying to make. Although the literature requests an AAA for Cambridge maths those getting the actual offers are predicted (and usually achieve the 3xA*) because there is such a high volume of applicants who apply with at least these grades but they definitely also need the 1 on STEP 2 and 3.

[LittleHo]

If a student from an ordinary state school wants to take STEP what is the procedure for registering for the exam? Is it taken within school or somewhere else?

[STEP234]

Darn it - I meant to say "anyone who did not have a good reason for taking MAT", not that Oxford did not have a good reason for omitting these from their applications rate. I haven't used the 1973/1368 figures, so the success rates are as high as possible.

[STEP234]

Oh - there is a it of a discrepancy between the applications number for Oxford on the two places where I have got data from. Once has 1973 applicants across the 4 degrees (1368 maths) and the other has 1880 applicants across the 4 degrees (1333 maths). This is because the second set of figures discounts anyone who did not take MAT (without good reason).

"Any applicant who failed to register for the test (including
those who registered late) or who did not sit the test – and did not have exceptional circumstances – was notified that their application was no longer under consideration."

[STEP234]

Please don't share with anyone you think might be put off! In terms of offers this data might be useful:

Cambridge: 405 Male offers and 122 Female offers

Oxford straight maths: 559 were shortlisted for interview (cannot find a break down of male/female for this one) and 207 had offers (52 female and 155 male)

Oxford all 4 maths: 791 were shortlisted and there were 285 offers (76 female and 209 male). The surprising thing here is that not all those who had Oxford offers made them!

As far as I can see the difference in approach in how they whittle the numbers down.

Oxford (straight maths numbers here): Use MAT to get applications down to 550 ish then use interview to select the 200 ish who will get in (more or less, about 20 did not make offer)

Cambridge: Use interview to whittle down to 550 ish then use STEP to select 250 ish who will get in.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Fascinating. Nothing like a few hard cold facts! Scary success rate, I think this is one post I might not wave in dds face.

I hadn't appreciated that Oxford have a smaller straight maths cohort than Cambridge. So 27% of Oxfords cohort were female (35% applied) and 17.5% of Cambridge were (26% applied)

It would be interesting to know the offer rate too to see if its the offers where things start to fall apart, or at the exam results.

[STEP234]

Oxford figures across all 4 maths degrees (Maths, Maths+Philosophy, Maths+Stats and Maths+CompSci).

Male:
1240 Applications, 184 Acceptances: Success rate 14.8%

Female:
640 Applications, 68 Acceptances: Success rate 10.6%

[STEP234]

Still seem to be here

I have looked up some numbers (all available on Cambridge/Oxford websites). These are application and final acceptance numbers for 2016 (most recent I can find). Note: "Oxford" is for just straight maths, not maths+philosophy etc. I can work those out as well.

Cambridge Male Applicants:
972 Applications, 211 Acceptances: success rate 21.7%

Cambridge Female Applicants:
340 Applications, 45 Acceptances: Success rate 13.2%

Oxford Male Applicants:
868 Applications, 138 Acceptances: Success rate 15.9%

Oxford Female Applicants:
465 Applications, 51 Acceptances: Success rate 11%

So for both Oxford and Cambridge males are more likely to get in than females, but females applying to Cambridge are more likely to get in than if they apply for Oxford. However there is a bigger gap between male and female success rates at Cambridge.

[STEP234]

I did start a thread in "higher education" as well, which got a little bit of traffic. It has been pointed out on there that the Further Maths Support Programme furthermaths.org.uk/ offers some support with STEP, but it does vary a bit region to region. Worth having a look to see!

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

If we do restart, I suggest that we do it in 'higher education' as I think there will be more traffic there for those looking at STEP.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

I hope mn don't remove the thread, but if they do I'm happy to start a thread.

[STEP234]

What I meant by the first sentence is that most maths teachers will have experience of finding something difficult, so can probably emphasise with the frustration, worry etc that a student doing STEP might be going through, even if the teacher has never attempted a STEP question.

[STEP234]

I think most maths teachers will have found something hard at some point. For myself when I was struggling with STEP as a teenager, just having someone (teacher would have been fine) taking the time to ask how it was going would have been great.

Mentor schemes are a great idea, and is something that we have talked about. I will need to address the STEP spec changes (for 2019) first.

However, first we need to reach as many schools and kids as we can, so that if we do start mentor schemes the students who need it most will hear about it.

Had a message from MNHQ last night. I have replied, but if this thread does disappear, if anyone else wants to start a STEP conversation I am happy to join in :-)

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

A mentor scheme would be a good idea. At the moment it’s not a level playing field in terms of support and perhaps this contributes to the gender imbalance. If you look at where a lot of the very successful Olympiad students come from, it tends to be boys super selectives. They are clearly very well supported in access to enrichment in maths. If those are the schools who are encouraging students and giving group masterclasses in STEP and similar higher order thinking maths, then that will naturally tip the balance in favour of there being more men than women being happy to apply for Cambridge. For them STEP is difficult, but not a scary mystery.

The STEP support program is useful and it’s a great outreach, but it doesn’t tackle the emotional side or the fact that learning how to approach difficult maths is best tackled as a communal effort.

[GHGN]

Most Maths teachers have no confidence in tackling a STEP question or can't do one themselves then how can they support their students even emotionally? The teachers don't have first hand experience of what students are going through.

When I first looked into STEP, although I had most of the required skills, it did take me a while to get my head around how a questions is structured and spot the general way to do a 'normal' question. For a student to do this on their own, it can feel like a lonely and scary experience.
Apart from some super selective schools or a Maths school, most students will be taking STEP as an one off in their school and it might be years before someone else needs to take it. What Cambridge could do it to have some volunteers from different regions running support classes at local school where the students need it most. Providing training for them and they can do a lot in return, just like the volunteers of UKMT. I ran support sessions for my students at my previous grammar school but at most I had 4 student doing STEP, I would love to have about 8-10 to bounce ideas off each other or support one another then just 1 or 2 students working together.

[AtiaoftheJulii]

STEP thanks for that info! And yes, computer science and maths definitely needs STEP.

[STEP234]

Fourth, not forth.

[STEP234]

Close - STEP is "Sixth Term Examination Papers". They have been around in kind of the same form (some spec changes) since 1987.

One problem with forth term is how little some students have covered. In some schools the further mathematicians will have covered an entire A-level in Single Maths during year 12 (and so some reasonably testing calculus questions can be set etc). Whereas in a lot of schools (especially state schools) further mathematicians have some lessons with single mathematicians and at the end of year 12 have covered maybe C1, C2, FP1, M1, S1, D1 which does not have a lot of scope (no compound trig formulae etc etc).

[relaxitllbeok]

It would be difficult to have a STEP style exam in the Autumn of year 13 as there is very little maths knowledge you can assume

But they used to, and I don't think the situation now is so different from what it was mumblety years ago, when I did what used to be called "fourth term entrance" for Cambridge maths, meaning exams and an interview procedure taking place in the autumn of second-year sixth form. I will never forget the feeling, just before Christmas, of receiving the acceptance letter (subject to getting two Es at A level!)

There used not to be a separate syllabus for it, or at least, my school laid on no special teaching - it was just harder questions based on what most people would have covered in the first year of sixth form.

My possibly-fallible memory says that STEP used to be an acronym for "seventh term entry procedure", which was the alternative to the fourth-term entry procedure I did. I understood at the time that it was replaced because it was considered unfair, because it was mostly independent schools who could copy with pupils hanging around to do a university entrance procedure after A levels. So they moved it to the sixth term, and abolished fourth term at the same time, as two entry procedures in the same year was deemed excessive. I don't know why they didn't just keep fourth term entry and abolish seventh term entry, though.

[WishfulThanking]

I've saved this page as a pdf in case it does go poof, thanks to the thread police who talked about the advertising .

Thanks for the info, STEP234

[STEP234]

It would be difficult to have a STEP style exam in the Autumn of year 13 as there is very little maths knowledge you can assume (mainly AS single maths - so hardly any calculus etc.).

On the flip side, I have known students who applied to Oxford and did not do so well in MAT and then did not get an interview (and felt disappointed that they had lost one of their places so early on). They might actually have done better with the Cambridge system and sit STEP at the end of year 13 when they were a bit more mathematically mature.