Admissions tests
Tests form one part of Oxford's admissions process and are used alongside a range of information to help assess candidate’s academic potential and suitability for many of our courses.
Advance notice of changes to admissions tests for 2027-entry:
From 2026, Oxford will be using admissions tests owned and managed by UAT-UK.
UAT-UK is a collaboration between Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge whose computer-based admissions tests are used by a range of UK universities and delivered online by Pearson via their worldwide network of test centres. The ESAT (Engineering and Science Admissions Test), TARA (Test of Academic Reasoning for Admissions) and TMUA (Test of Mathematics for University Admission) will be taken by Oxford candidates where required for admission to their chosen course. Oxford applicants also applying to other universities which use these tests will only need to take the relevant UAT-UK test once.
The full list of courses requiring a 2026 UAT-UK admissions test is as follows:
Biomedical Sciences - ESAT
Computer Science - TMUA
Computer Science and Philosophy - TMUA
Economics and Management - TARA
Engineering Science - ESAT
History and Economics - TARA
History and Politics - TARA (still tbc)
Human Sciences - TARA
Mathematics/Mathematics and Statistics - TMUA
Mathematics and Computer Science - TMUA
Mathematics and Philosophy - TMUA
Physics - ESAT
Physics and Philosophy - ESAT
Politics, Philosophy and Economics - TARA
Psychology (Experimental) - TARA
Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics - TARA
All further details including guidance on test dates, registration and booking, and preparation for 2027-entry tests will be available from April 2026 via the UAT-UK website. Applicants for the courses listed above will need to sit the October sitting for these tests.
Medicine
Oxford will continue to use the Pearson UCAT (University Clinical Aptitude Test) for Medicine and Graduate-entry Medicine with charges and arrangements as advertised by Pearson.
Law
As in other years, candidates for Law will take Pearson's LNAT with arrangements and charges as advertised by Pearson.
No other Oxford undergraduate course will have an admissions test in 2026.
Note: All 2026-entry applicants who took the AHCAAT, BMSAT, CAT, MAT, MLAT, PAT, PhilAT or TSA in 2025 will receive their scores via the Oxford Admissions Test Registration portal by the end of January, 2026.
