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.

SuperPug I will report my post and see what Mumsnet HQ say. I'll admit I was trying to spread the word about the resources as far as possible, but there is not financial cost to any users.

User One of our aims to is increase confidence in sitting STEP, which can be a particular problem for female students. The hope is that by providing a structured course for students to work through STEP is seen as less of a gamble.

I am not involved with setting offers at any university, so cannot comment on whether any university over-inflates their offers. My aim is to provide support for students who have received a STEP offer.

Before this thread goes poof, user I have sent you a message about information not getting through when offers were received. If you could let me have some more info I can look into it.

AtiaoftheJulii
There is info on offers made by colleges in this 2015 guide www.maths.cam.ac.uk/system/files/guide_0.pdf but the latest one does not seem to have this www.maths.cam.ac.uk/admissionsguide.pdf. I'll have a look through all the colleges websites to see if I can get anything useful.

Oh thanks, it must have been that earlier guide I was thinking of. (Which has no typical three A star offers I notice, allthebest!)

I found the more recent one this morning and was sure it wasn't what I'd seen before. But please don't go to any further trouble on my account - my son is a good mathematician, happily doing further maths, but he wants to study computer science, so unless he decides to go for maths and comsci at Cambridge (unlikely atm) he won't need STEP. I just wanted Allthebest to back up their claim.

AtiaoftheJulii No problem. IIRC there were a few offers for straight computer science at Cambridge which included a STEP competent (STEP I, I think). Also a few for engineering.

I haven't looked at all the college websites, but I was going by this from the Com Sci site, would have thought STEP would have been mentioned if some asked for it?

Computer Science
Required by all Colleges: A Level/IB Higher Level Mathematics
Required by some Colleges: A Level/IB Higher Level in a second or three science/mathematics subjects and/or particular subjects

Would definitely be interested to hear if any colleges had required STEP.

I don't think this thread should go poof!

It is the kind of stuff that we don't get to hear about so when someone points out free information it can only be beneficial.

It is great that a lot of universities don't require it though and as there are five choices on the UCAS form the students can put a mix of choices down.

Why don't you just get the title edited to STEP (useful information for maths at X, Y, Z universities) Note - STEP not required by most maths degree courses.

AtiaoftheJulii From www.christs.cam.ac.uk/admissions/computer-science ". Occasionally, applicants for 75% Computer Science who have expressed an interest in STEP may be asked to complete STEP 1 alongside their A-levels or in lieu of a non-relevant A-level subject. This gives them an additional opportunity to demonstrate the mathematical aptitude necessary to thrive on our course. " This is probably why I heard of a few (not many) CompScis getting a STEP offer. Anyone wanting to do "Computer Science with Mathematics" will probably be asked to do STEP.

Thanks LittleHo - have reported the post and suggested the title change!

I hope the thread doesn’t go poof, even though it slightly contravenes the no advertising without asking rule because it’s taking an interesting direction.

User I just asked dd your question about why fewer females apply to Cambridge to do maths. It is a confidence thing she thinks, even when students show equivalence in ability. Cambridge have clearly put in steps to try and improve the issue, for example a weekend for potential female applicants.

She thinks there is a perception that Oxford seems easier to get into for a place that carries the same level of prestige, even though it isn’t any easier, it’s just different.

One aspect is simply MAT is much easier than STEP and that colours their thinking. It’s also not taken at the same time as A levels so there isn’t so much concentrated pressure. Oxford seems to have a much less stressful application process overall.

We don’t know what more Cambridge can do. It’s a self reinforcing thing, that the more it’s known that very few females apply, the less likely they are to apply because they feel they won’t fit in.

One idea dd and I have postulated as might being helpful would be an online forum/website for young female burgeoning mathematicians, where it could help normalise the idea that girls can do hard maths. UKMT could advertise it with UKMOG perhaps.

If you're advertising a service, don't you normally have to pay for the advertising?

Does this rule apply when the service does not itself charge money?

We don’t know what more Cambridge can do. It’s a self reinforcing thing, that the more it’s known that very few females apply, the less likely they are to apply because they feel they won’t fit in.

Well, it is clear that Cambridge could do more.

For example - change from STEP admission to definitive admissions tests taken in the Autumn, as Oxford maths does. Oxford does have better gender ratios than Cambridge and I don't believe its students are particularly weaker.

For example - make more of an effort to improve gender ratios at staff level, so that more of the staff interviewing/doing open days/running taster days are female.

Cambridge Maths itself (via its Athena SWAN plan) would acknowledge that there are many areas to improve. (I should say though that dropping STEP in favour of Autumn tests does not have support within the maths departments as far as I know.)

That is true, moving STEP to the autumn could help, but it would have to have the same level of perceived difficulty as MAT. dd doesn’t think it’s a timing issue. She could be wrong though, just because that’s not an issue for her, it may well be an issue for others.

At the taster day she went to at Cambridge there was a good representation of women there.

I’m sure there is more that could be done, we just can’t think of anything. I only have experience of one dc half way through the process obviously so it’s exceptionally limited experience. It seems to be that the most confident students in their ability tend to apply for cambridge, the less confident for Oxford but of course confidence does not equal actual ability.

Cambridge is unlikely to drop STEP as STEP results correlate more strongly with degree results than anything else (cannot find the file at the moment, will keep looking).

I will agree that there is plenty of room for improvement, and there are quite a lot of people working on this.

Possibly one aspect is that female students prefer the certainty of knowing whether they have a place at Oxford or not (as if they have passed the MAT and interview, the A-levels should be no trouble) rather than the greater chance of getting on offer from Cambridge (500+ offers a year) coupled with the uncertainty of meeting the offer.

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.

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

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.

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).

Fourth, not forth.

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

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.

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.

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 :-)

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.

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