Oxford MAT 2013/2014

What's the lowest score achieved by applicants that have managed to receive offers?

On the oxford website, there are average score of successful applicants for every year.

Yes I know that. I asking if anyone has any idea for the lowest score achieved by those that receive offers, not the average.

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What's the lowest score achieved by applicants that have managed to receive offers?

You would have to take the qualifications by early August (when the A Level results come out) -- so plenty of time yet. However, you should be indicating your intention to take them soon, by about 15th November when we start short-listing. I suggest you email your college (admissions@college-name.ox.ac.uk) to tell them what you intend to take; or if you made an open application, mail us at [email protected], and we'll pass it on to the college considering your application.

The page at http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/ugadmissions/why_oxford/standard_conditional_offers.htm lists the subjects we'd like to see in SAT subject tests.

Nobody has a definitive answer to your question because the statistics they release about the scores just aren't that detailed. Here's what I've been able to gather about how Oxford does maths admissions from stalking this forum and tons of other websites:
1. To determine who they interview, they set a cut-off MAT score. This isn't a hard line, so some people with an excellent application (PS/Ref/Grades) who fall slightly below the cut-off may still be invited, and people with a sloppy application who fall slightly above the cut-off might not be, but the MAT score is definitely the thing they look at most when deciding who to interview. How high this cut-off score is is obviously not published, but assuming that the average MAT score is approximately equal to the median MAT score (this is possibly not true because the amount of people that absolutely blows the test might be bringing the average down), it's probably around 50-55.
2. They give you a 'grade' on a scale of 1 to 9 for your interview, and consider the interview together with the MAT score when deciding who to offer a place in the end. I'm not sure whether there's an exact formula , but I remember reading somewhere that those two scores are put together to sort all candidates by overall application strength. Again, this is probably not a hard cut-off, but a guideline for admissions officers. Since 2011 they've been releasing average scores for shortlisted applicants as well; The average MAT grade for successful applicants is significantly higher (5-8 points) than that for shortlisted applicants, which suggests that they take both interview grades and MAT score into account when deciding who to offer a place.

Beware that this is just my educated guess.

You spoke about the shortlisting beginning on 15th November. Does this process take into account MAT scores?

And, the SAT Subject Test results are releasing today. My referee predicted certain scores, but can I update Oxford with the scores I've attained? If so, how? Via UCAS?

Thank you.

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Let's clear this up. People have scored between 55-60 and got an offer, but they tend to be the ones who have a very strong academic record and good interviews to make up for it. Stating the obvious, just aim as high as you can and stop worrying what score you're gonna get. Best of luck

I don't think I have a very high chance of receiving an offer to be honest.

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Me neither

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May you please answer this question which is puzzling me: How would shortlisting be done if some candidates haven't yet achieved the required educational qualifications(for example, A* A* A in GCSE)? If an applicant's academic results will be released by July 2014, how would you calculate the relevant PSI for them? As far as I can understand, there are 'conditional offers' which are awarded to applicants on the condition of getting those qualifications by August, but how would those applicants be invited to interviews in the first place?

I can add some more information.

We use a measure called the Provisional Short-listing Indicator (PSI), which is a linear combination of MAT score and the number of A*s at GCSE (or equivalent qualifications); the MAT score has most weight. One of our colleagues in Statistics validated this measure a few years back. Based on this, the Admissions Coordinators suggest a default threshold on PSI to be used for short-listing, with the aim of short-listing about three candidates per place. In recent years, this threshold has corresponded to a MAT score of about 50, but it varies from year to year based on the difficulty of the test and the number of good candidates.

College tutors then decide which candidates to short-list, looking particularly closely at candidates near the default threshold. One major criterion in decisions not to follow the default is contextual information: for example, if a candidate has come from a school with a less strong academic background, then he/she might have more potential that the raw scores suggest; alternatively, if a candidate had a particularly privileged education, then that might make his/her scores look more modest.

Interviews used to be scored on a scale from 1 to 9, but we recently added some grades like 7- and 7+ to allow for finer distinctions near the accept/reject borderline. Colleges then decide which candidates to accept. We have a big final meeting to try to make sure that we've been as fair as possible, and to try to identify any worthy candidates that might have been missed; we also decide on open offers at this meeting.

We don't use a formula for making final decisions. I believe one should never make such decisions formulaically unless one has validated the formula; and I don't believe it's possible to validate a formula in this case, because there are too many factors to consider, and too much noise in the data.

To partially answer Sherlock's question, there are sometimes candidates that score a bit below the default short-listing threshold on PSI, but who are short-listed and end up with a place. But these are rare. And Blazy's advice to just aim as high as you can is good advice.

Yes. See my most recent post in this thread for more details.



Mail your college, as in my earlier reply to you. Or better, get your referee to mail the college.

I think you're confusing the UK exam systems - GCSEs are exams taken at the age of 16; A*A*A is a typical conditional offer for A levels taken at the age of 18