The MAT Has Been Retired

Oxford’s Mathematics Admissions Test is no longer set. The Mathematical Institute describes the MAT as a test used from 2007 to 2025, and says that from the 2026 admissions round it will not take place. Applicants for Oxford Maths or Computer Science entering in 2027 sit the TMUA instead, on 12–16 October 2026, with booking closing 28 September 2026.

Is the MAT still running?

No. The Mathematical Institute’s own page now reads in the past tense: “The Mathematics Admissions Test (MAT) was a test used from 2007 to 2025 for Oxford admissions to Maths, Computer Science, or joint honours courses. Starting in 2026, Oxford uses the TMUA instead.” That is the university’s wording, not an interpretation of it.

The change is wider than one test. Oxford has stopped setting its own admissions papers and moved to the UAT-UK suite, which covers the ESAT for the sciences, the TARA for the humanities and social sciences, and the TMUA for mathematics. Oxford’s guidance describes UAT-UK as a collaboration between Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge whose computer-based tests are delivered online by Pearson through its worldwide network of test centres. One practical consequence: a candidate applying to several universities that use the same UAT-UK test only needs to take that test once.

This matters because the MAT is still heavily searched, still discussed in school sixth forms, and still sold as a product. If a teacher, a revision guide or a preparation course is still organising your autumn around a MAT sitting, that timetable belongs to a cycle that has closed. The dates, the paper structure and the way your score reaches Oxford have all moved.

Which test do Oxford Maths and Computer Science applicants sit now?

The TMUA. Oxford publishes the full mapping of course to test inside a collapsed panel on its admissions tests page, and the mathematical courses all sit in the same column. Our TMUA preparation page covers that test in full. The table below reproduces Oxford’s mapping for the courses most MAT candidates were aiming at, alongside the rest of the Oxford list so you can see where your joint honours course lands.

Note what is not on that list. Oxford’s old suite — the MAT for mathematics, the TSA for PPE and related courses, the HAT for History and the ELAT for English — has gone as a set. If you were preparing for any of them, the mapping above tells you which UAT-UK test replaced it for your course. Imperial College London is one of the two universities behind UAT-UK, so its mathematics requirements now sit in the same system; check the requirement on your specific Imperial course page before you book.

When is the TMUA, and when does booking close?

The single most damaging thing about believing the MAT is still running is that the deadlines are different. The MAT closed for booking in late September and was sat in the second half of October. The TMUA closes for booking on 28 September 2026 and is sat the week before the UCAS deadline, not after it. Miss the booking window and there is no route back in: Oxford requires undergraduate applicants to take the October sitting, and UAT-UK does not accept bookings after the stated deadline.

There is a second UAT-UK sitting on 4–8 January 2027, but for almost every Oxford applicant it does not exist. UAT-UK states that the January window is not applicable for Cambridge or Oxford applicants unless you are applying to a mature college with a January admissions deadline at Cambridge, or an Oxford Foundation Year programme that also has a January deadline. For a standard Oxford Maths or Computer Science application there is no fallback sitting. October is the only chance in the cycle.

Booking also now carries a fee, which the MAT did not advertise on the same terms. UAT-UK states that a test costs £78 for candidates in the UK and Republic of Ireland and £133 for candidates sitting elsewhere, with a bursary scheme for those who need it — which is precisely why the bursary deadline in the table above sits a week before the booking deadline rather than alongside it.

How does the TMUA differ from the MAT?

This is the comparison nobody publishes, and it is the one that decides whether your existing preparation is worth anything. The two tests share a purpose and a large part of their syllabus, but they are built differently, and three of those differences change how you should practise.

The three that matter most: there is no written working to be credited any more, so the habit of writing a long careful argument for partial marks now earns nothing; the score arrives before interviews rather than after them, so for the first time you will walk into a December interview knowing roughly where you stand; and Paper 2 is a reasoning and elementary logic paper, which is the one part of the TMUA the MAT never really tested.

What transfers from MAT past papers, and what does not?

Quite a lot transfers, and this is not our opinion. Oxford’s Mathematical Institute says so directly on its TMUA page: “Any applicants who have already looked at MAT past papers will find that the mathematical topics covered on the TMUA are very similar to those covered on the MAT, and the spirit of problem-solving is common to both tests.” If you spent last summer on MAT papers, that work was not wasted.

What carries over is the mathematics and the habit of mind. Both tests aim, in Oxford’s own repeated wording, to test the depth of a student’s mathematical understanding in the fourth term of their A-levels rather than a breadth of knowledge, and both are set to be approachable by students without Further Mathematics. The MAT syllabus was built on the first year of A level Maths plus a few fourth-term topics; the TMUA specification covers mathematics usually taught at AS-level or Higher Level GCSE plus a small number of full A-level topics. Those overlap heavily. Every MAT multiple-choice question you have worked through is still good practice.

What does not carry over falls into three groups. First, the long-answer technique. The MAT’s two long questions rewarded a written argument and gave partial credit for a partial solution; the TMUA gives you nineteen or twenty more multiple-choice questions instead. Time spent learning to write up a proof elegantly is time you are no longer being marked on — though the reasoning underneath it still matters.

Second, pacing. The MAT let you allocate two and a half hours across one paper however you liked, so a candidate could bank the multiple-choice section and spend forty minutes on a long question. The TMUA locks you into two separate 75-minute papers of 20 questions each. That is under four minutes a question, twice over, with no opportunity to borrow time from the other half. This is the single most common thing MAT-trained candidates get wrong in their first timed TMUA practice.

Third, the logic. TMUA Paper 2 tests mathematical reasoning and simple ideas from elementary logic — necessary and sufficient conditions, the structure of a proof, what a counterexample does. UAT-UK publishes a Notes on Logic and Proof document specifically for this section, and Oxford points candidates to it. There is no MAT past paper that will prepare you for that section, and it is half the test.

The practical upshot: use MAT past papers as a bank of hard problems, not as mock exams. Nineteen years of MAT papers with official solutions remain published by the Mathematical Institute, alongside eight years of genuine TMUA past papers on the UAT-UK site. Do your timed mocks on the TMUA papers, because only they have the right shape; mine the MAT papers for the mathematics.

How should you prepare for the TMUA now?

Start with the official material, because it is free and it is definitive. Read the TMUA content specification, work through the Notes on Mathematics and the Notes on Logic and Proof, and then sit a full past paper under timed conditions before you decide what to work on. Oxford also runs a livestream and a summer webinar series aimed at the TMUA content specification, and the Mathematical Institute publishes TMUA flashcards for the specification. None of that costs anything.

Then be honest about the gap. Most students who come to us from a MAT background are mathematically strong and structurally unprepared: they can solve the problems but they cannot solve them in under four minutes, and they have never been asked to decide whether a condition is necessary, sufficient, both or neither. Those are trainable, but they are trained differently from the way you train for a long written paper.

One further point on shortlisting. Oxford states that it shortlists around three applicants per place for interview and uses the TMUA score together with the rest of the UCAS application to decide who those are. There is no pass mark and UAT-UK is explicit that there is no pass or fail score. What that means in practice is that the test is a ranking instrument, not a hurdle, and the marginal question you leave blank is the one that costs you — particularly now that wrong answers carry no penalty.

Frequently Asked Questions

Reviewed August 2026: every date, format and score figure on this page was re-checked against Oxford’s admissions tests guidance, the Mathematical Institute’s MAT and TMUA pages, and the UAT-UK key dates and TMUA test pages

Frequently Asked Questions

How does the consultation work?

We’ll learn more about your child, the subject or admissions support they need, and the outcomes you’re aiming for before recommending the next step.

Is the consultation free?

Yes. It is a free consultation with no obligation, designed to help you understand the best route forward.

Can you help with specialist support like UCAT or Oxbridge admissions?

Yes. We support Primary, 11+, 13+, GCSE, A-Level, SATs, UCAT, MMI interview coaching, Oxbridge admissions, university admissions, and personal statement support.