The MAT vs STEP?

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Oxford then found that as the pass rate for A levels climbed inexorably that A levels did not adequately discriminate between applicants. Rather than being chased down the road of requiring ever higher grades in irrelevant subjects Oxford introduced a series of short aptitude tests. MAT is one of these.

STEP is thus a legacy of a system that used to be universal at Oxbridge. MAT is part of a much newer system with a much more limited remit.

The MAT was introduced in 1996, the year after the entrance test was abolished. However it was a test taken at interview time in Oxford until 2007, when it moved to being a pre-interview test taken in schools/colleges.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 21

nulli tertius

Original post by RichE

I accept your point that there may not be a true hiatus between the abolition of the old exam and the new one so far as maths is concerned (other tests are later), but by the time of the new one, the entrance exam had become a minority sport with over half sitting no exam because they were either conditional offer (mode N) candidates or post A level candidates.

Reply 22

RichE

Original post by nulli tertius

I'm not wholly sure what you're claiming, but 90% of maths applicants were still taking the Mathematics entrance exam in its last year 1995.

Reply 23

nulli tertius

Original post by RichE

I'm not wholly sure what you're claiming, but 90% of maths applicants were still taking the Mathematics entrance exam in its last year 1995.

Is that a published stat or is that information you hold?

I find that quite interesting because I hadn't realised there was such a large subject variation.

Obviously across the entire university only 48% of applicants were sitting the exam by 1995 and 12% of applicants were post A level applicants who by definition were not sitting the exam by 1995.

I wasn't aware of anything at the time and haven't read anything since that saw the debate about abolition in subject terms. I think what you are saying does cast a different light on the decision to abolish.

Reply 24

RichE

Original post by nulli tertius

Is that a published stat or is that information you hold?

That's information I hold from my time interviewing that year,

Obviously across the entire university only 48% of applicants were sitting the exam by 1995 and 12% of applicants were post A level applicants who by definition were not sitting the exam by 1995.

Reciprocally, I'd welcome knowing the source of this data. An old prospectus?

I wasn't aware of anything at the time and haven't read anything since that saw the debate about abolition in subject terms. I think what you are saying does cast a different light on the decision to abolish.

Mathematics, at least, were always of a mind that they needed a test of some kind which is why the MAT was introduced straight away in 1996.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 25

RichE

Original post by nulli tertius

Obviously across the entire university only 48% of applicants were sitting the exam by 1995 and 12% of applicants were post A level applicants who by definition were not sitting the exam by 1995.

So I dug up some old prospectuses and it does seem that Maths was something of an outlier:

Applications in 1991 across the University:
Mode E - 5929
Mode N - 2540
Mode P - 1237

Applications in 1994:
Mode E - 5313
Mode N - 3294
Mode P - 1189

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 26

nick dixon

STEP is tooo ezz