Admissions Testing: What, Why, How?
What are admissions tests and where have they come from?
Admissions tests are nothing new, both Oxford and Cambridge have been using them (on and off) in some form for more than 200 years. The modern university admissions process uses more tests, with more variety, than ever before. Students in today’s world will have to contend with both getting excellent marks in their qualifications at school, and also excelling in a separate examination with a different (or, in some cases, absent) curriculum. Not to mention some of the challenging super-curricular academic work which many students need in order to stand out to their dream university.
If students have to do so much, why test them further?
Admissions tests have always been intended for a simple function - to thin the herd. The uptick in the difficulty and number of admissions tests in the past decade is a response by the universities to an explosion in both the number and the quality of applicants. In 1995 Cambridge received just under 7000 applications globally, in 2022 that had increased to 22,500 (1). When, in the 20th century, a student could be sure to stand out with a clean sweep of O and A level top grades, now the majority of applicants to leading UK universities have great grades. Improved time management, research skills, support from schools, and learning resources have all made the young people of today more academically literate and adept than ever before, but as a result - each university must now find some way to choose a handful of candidates from a large cohort which are all excellent on paper. The admissions tests are intended to do just that. Often designed with unusual or missing specifications, university admissions tests are intended to sample a different range of skills than those assessed by standardised testing (such as A Levels or International Baccalaureate tests). This allows students who can excel at both taught and ‘un-taught’ examinations to rise to the top. Of course, universities try to prevent students from preparing adequately for their admissions tests by frequently changing requirements, structure, question types, and content, but at Spyglass we have a group of tutors who have worked in the examination writing teams themselves, and use this to great effect when supporting and preparing our students.
How do we sit admissions tests? How do we get help?
Most students in the UK will be able to use their school to register for the relevant admissions tests, and sit them on school grounds. However, it is a student’s responsibility to ensure that they have registered for all of the correct tests for the courses they wish to apply for well in advance of the test date. Registration windows are different for every test, and change from year to year. Schools will often not offer to help with this, or will have outdated or incorrect information, so be careful! Students outside of the UK will often have to register independently, and apply to sit the test in an official testing centre. These can be hard to find if you are not already in the know, and will often have a separate set of registration windows and deadlines for access arrangements and payment.
Preparation can begin in a range of ways, but an excellent first step is to try and identify all of the tests required for your chosen subjects and universities (this will be on each individual course page at each university’s web-site, be aware that different Oxbridge colleges use different tests), and then using the wide range of free materials online to get a sense of some of the question types and gauge your ability. Beware - that many of the free (and even paid) resources online are outdated, and do not reflect the latest version of the exam. Spyglass help all of their students by ensuring that there’s a comprehensive roadmap and plan for all of the tests that are being taken, we then ensure that our students are registered for all of their tests well in advance, with the correct test centre - and this is before we even mention preparation. Dedicated admissions test coaches, all of them experienced examiners who took the test themselves and have since worked on the real thing, support our students in creating a bespoke plan of action, with a learning, revision, and mock exam schedule and dedicated resources which can’t be found online. We support our students with admissions tests by ensuring that they are preparing for all of the correct tests, with a wide range of practice materials and focused 1:1 support in learning the structure of the test, the styles of questions, the relevant skills and knowledge required. This guarantees that they feel fully at ease with the examination well in advance of exam day, and can go into it knowing what to expect, totally prepared, and ready to get a score which will set them apart from their colleagues.
