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Oxford MAT 2013/2014

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Reply 280
I am really stressing about the MAT! What would you say is the minimum score to get an interview, at Oxford?
Reply 281
Original post by Louise246
I am really stressing about the MAT! What would you say is the minimum score to get an interview, at Oxford?


Lately you've needed 50 to secure an interview. I doubt many people getting ~50, if any, go onto getting an offer though.
Original post by Noble.
Lately you've needed 50 to secure an interview. I doubt many people getting ~50, if any, go onto getting an offer though.


How about around mid 60s?
Original post by CD315
Average for successful Oxford Applicants that year was 69. I should be getting much higher than 54! Most other papers I've done have ranged between 75 and 90.


Just relax and ignore the boundaries- I know it seems hard to in the real thing- but this is the only way your best will come out- when you're totally focused on the Maths and not stressing over your score tally. With each paper you sit you gain more experience- at least this is the approach I am taking. Over a month left. :smile:
Reply 284
Original post by nahomyemane778
Just relax and ignore the boundaries- I know it seems hard to in the real thing- but this is the only way your best will come out- when you're totally focused on the Maths and not stressing over your score tally. With each paper you sit you gain more experience- at least this is the approach I am taking. Over a month left. :smile:


Thanks for the support.
Reply 285
Original post by CD315
Average for successful Oxford Applicants that year was 69. I should be getting much higher than 54! Most other papers I've done have ranged between 75 and 90.


Not pretending it's great, but shouldn't be disastrous for Imperial. Whilst that's a completely unsubstaniated guess, the sensible thing for Imperial to do is to err on the side of caution*

*Imperial are known for doing some pretty stupid things.
Reply 286
Original post by shamika
Not pretending it's great, but shouldn't be disastrous for Imperial. Whilst that's a completely unsubstaniated guess, the sensible thing for Imperial to do is to err on the side of caution*

*Imperial are known for doing some pretty stupid things.


Perhaps if I get borderline they'll throw a STEP offer at me - I'd be happier with that to be honest.
Original post by Oxford Computer Science Dept
Hi. I think you said somewhere that you're interested in the joint M&CompSci course too, so hopefully this will be useful to you (although it's still broadly applicable to straight Maths applicants)

*Advice on choosing a college: http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/ugadmissions/how_to_apply/choose_college.html
Pick one college that you like and apply there, or make an open application. If you get to interview stage you will automatically be interviewed by a second college that we assign you. Tutors from all of the colleges will have access to your application.

We work very hard to make things fair across the colleges. The tutors work together to take the best candidates no-matter which college you apply to. Really, you should be thinking about which college would suit you best -- not which is the easiest to get into! If you can't decide it's fine to make an open application.

*Information on interviews, including sample questions: http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/ugadmissions/how_to_apply/interviews.html


That link about the colleges was really helpful, thanks! Wonder how I missed If when I visited Oxford's site. I chose a college finally. :biggrin:

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Original post by journeyinwards
That link about the colleges was really helpful, thanks! Wonder how I missed If when I visited Oxford's site. I chose a college finally. :biggrin:

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Excellent! (We've only just re-written that section of the website so it's good to hear it helped.) Which one did you decide to go for & which course? (if you don't mind me asking...)
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by Oxford Computer Science Dept
Excellent! (We've only just re-written that section of the website so it's good to hear it helped.) Which one did you decide to go for & which course? (if you don't mind me asking...)


I thought I had it sorted after I opened up that link BUT then I spoke to my brother and he confused the hell out of me about which course to take -.- Yet stuck up on choosing my course, weird situation :P

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Original post by shamika
Not pretending it's great, but shouldn't be disastrous for Imperial. Whilst that's a completely unsubstaniated guess, the sensible thing for Imperial to do is to err on the side of caution*

*Imperial are known for doing some pretty stupid things.
Yeesss... I'm kind of expecting Imperial to do something like arbitrarily cut off anyone who gets less than X+5 on the MAT, where X is the average score for successful Oxford applicants.
Reply 291
Original post by DFranklin
Yeesss... I'm kind of expecting Imperial to do something like arbitrarily cut off anyone who gets less than X+5 on the MAT, where X is the average score for successful Oxford applicants.


This is my worry :lol:

Their website signals that they'll give STEP offers only in borderline cases. I wonder how they'll work that :confused:
Reply 292
Original post by DFranklin
Yeesss... I'm kind of expecting Imperial to do something like arbitrarily cut off anyone who gets less than X+5 on the MAT, where X is the average score for successful Oxford applicants.


My guess (or at least, if I was lazy, what I would do): Look at how many offers were needed to fill places over the last few years. Assuming that A-Level performance is correlated with MAT scores, give offers solely based on MAT (i.e. give an offer to the top x students, where x is the number of offers that were needed in the last few years.

To give a pretence of actually doing something, I might also randomly give people silly A-Level / STEP offers for fun :tongue:

On the other hand, Imperial does insist it looks at multiple factors and bases its offers on the evidence it gets. We have to trust that admissions tutor makes offers in good faith, and have no evidence that Imperial won't do the same this year.
Reply 293
Original post by shamika
My guess (or at least, if I was lazy, what I would do): Look at how many offers were needed to fill places over the last few years. Assuming that A-Level performance is correlated with MAT scores, give offers solely based on MAT (i.e. give an offer to the top x students, where x is the number of offers that were needed in the last few years.

To give a pretence of actually doing something, I might also randomly give people silly A-Level / STEP offers for fun :tongue:

On the other hand, Imperial does insist it looks at multiple factors and bases its offers on the evidence it gets. We have to trust that admissions tutor makes offers in good faith, and have no evidence that Imperial won't do the same this year.


Considering Oxford do this (but also combine the interview score) and Imperial don't interview, it wouldn't surprise me at all if that's how they're actually going to do it.
Reply 294
Original post by Noble.
Considering Oxford do this (but also combine the interview score) and Imperial don't interview, it wouldn't surprise me at all if that's how they're actually going to do it.


Seems that way. Perhaps those lower down the scale will get STEP added in too.
Reply 295
Anyone else doing the MEI course on Monday evenings for help with MAT?
Reply 296
Original post by Noble.
Considering Oxford do this (but also combine the interview score) and Imperial don't interview, it wouldn't surprise me at all if that's how they're actually going to do it.


Indeed. I shouldn't complain, it is the fairest way to allocate offers, but something about it doesn't feel right. For some reason I was much more comfortable with STEP offers. Perhaps it's the fact that STEP is the closest you can reasonably get to university level difficulty and style of question without actually teaching more maths, whereas MAT is taken much earlier on, when there is still a chance an excellent mathmo is yet to truly blossom. Not sure what it is really.
Reply 297
Original post by shamika
Indeed. I shouldn't complain, it is the fairest way to allocate offers, but something about it doesn't feel right. For some reason I was much more comfortable with STEP offers. Perhaps it's the fact that STEP is the closest you can reasonably get to university level difficulty and style of question without actually teaching more maths, whereas MAT is taken much earlier on, when there is still a chance an excellent mathmo is yet to truly blossom. Not sure what it is really.


There's no reason you can't use both. In fact, if I were in charge of admissions - that's exactly what I would do. Given that STEP and MAT are such drastically different exams, you could probably get a very good intake of students by giving STEP offers to the top x% of MAT scorers (where the x% would be determined by over-offering by about 60% - similar to Cambridge). Using 2012/13's admission statistics, that would work out as you needing to be in the top 25% of the MAT (not really that difficult to achieve) to get a STEP offer.
Original post by Noble.
There's no reason you can't use both. In fact, if I were in charge of admissions - that's exactly what I would do. Given that STEP and MAT are such drastically different exams, you could probably get a very good intake of students by giving STEP offers to the top x% of MAT scorers (where the x% would be determined by over-offering by about 60% - similar to Cambridge). Using 2012/13's admission statistics, that would work out as you needing to be in the top 25% of the MAT (not really that difficult to achieve) to get a STEP offer.


Whilst technically you are right - practically you are not. Oxford and Cambridge choose to use different style entrance exams so there are reasons for excellent mathmos to choose one over the other. If the entrance route/level of offer were exactly the same then candidates would choose the perceived better university over the other. Whilst if one gave a lower level of offer the same excellent candidates would apply to one and use the other as insurance.

Universities consider many things at offer stage not just getting the best students after all they are large businesses which are competing for scarce funding at the moment.
(edited 10 years ago)
how are the mat test graded, what grade can you get, what grades do you need to pass?

does any one have previous year grade boundaries?

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