Magdalen College School

MCS Oxford admissions guide

MCS is going co-educational in stages, and which stage decides whether a girl can apply. The timetable, the six-section test day, and the 2027 dates.

By Richard and Freddie, who joined The Perse in 2019 and left in 2026 after Year 13 to become expert admission tutors.
Last checked 11 September 2026

The first thing to establish about MCS admissions is not the exam. It is whether your child can apply at all this year.

After 546 years as a boys' school, Magdalen College School is going fully co-educational — in stages, over seven years.

The co-education timetable

In practice: a girl can be registered for Year 3 or Year 4 now, and registration for that first co-educational intake closes on 31 October 2026. A girl applying at 11+ cannot until the 2030 intake.

Test day

One day, three sessions.

About 115 minutes online with breaks included, plus the written session.

Two rows there deserve attention. The written session sits between the two online ones, so a candidate switches from screen to pen and back again — a transition worth rehearsing in itself. And the third session contains the two sections most preparation leaves out entirely.

The adaptive half, and what it means

Three of the six online sections adapt: maths, non-verbal reasoning and verbal reasoning. A wrong answer changes the next question and there is no going back to check.

That is a different exam-room skill from a paper test, where a child can leave the hard ones and return. It rewards answering carefully first time and pacing steadily, and it punishes the habit most preparation teaches. The other three sections are not adaptive and can be reviewed, so a candidate needs both habits and needs to know which session she is in.

It is the same shape of assessment Dulwich College and City of London School set, which is worth knowing if your child is sitting more than one of them.

What the School says it wants

We look carefully for potential, and not simply at current attainment.

Worth taking at face value given the format. A child who is answering correctly in an adaptive section is pushed into harder questions, so finding it hard is the design rather than a bad sign, and finishing comfortably is not the goal. Shortlisted candidates return for a 30-minute interview with one of the School's teachers.

Dates for September 2027 entry

That registration deadline covers the first co-educational Year 3 and Year 4 intake as well.

Fees

For 2026-27 the Senior School fee is £8,363.33 a term plus £1,672.67 VAT, which is £10,036.00 a term and £30,108 a year.

Lower and Upper Sixth carry an additional Sixth Form Levy of £137.50 plus VAT — £165.00 — a term, which is worth folding into any long-range projection rather than discovering in Year 12.

Bursaries

Means-tested awards reach 100% of fees, and around 10% of Senior School pupils receive help.

The School draws the distinction clearly: a bursary is means-tested and takes account of financial need, whereas a scholarship recognises achievement regardless of it. At MCS that distinction matters more than at most schools, for the reason below.

Scholarships

That is not a criticism — an honorary award is still a real distinction, and plenty of schools are moving this way. But a family budgeting on the assumption that a strong academic performance translates into a discount will be wrong, and should be planning around the bursary instead.

City of London School takes the same approach. Most of the girls' schools on our roster do not: Godolphin's music award reaches 30% of fees, and City of London School for Girls' reaches 10%.

Entry points

Six — 7+, 8+, 9+, 11+, 13+ and sixth form — plus a separate Year 9 pre-test round and a choir pathway. That is more routes in than any other school covered on this site, and which of them are open to girls depends entirely on the timetable at the top of this guide.

How to prepare

Check the co-education timetable first. For a daughter, it decides whether there is an application to make this year at all.

Cover the two forgotten sections. Puzzles and problem solving, and creative comprehension, are a third of the online time and almost nothing sold as 11+ preparation includes them.

Practise adaptive pacing on a screen. Answer carefully first time, keep moving, and accept that the questions are meant to get harder.

Write by hand, to time. Forty-five minutes of handwritten creative writing, sandwiched between two screen sessions, is a physical and mental gear change.

The shorter version of all this, with the assessment laid out beside our preparation for it, is on our Magdalen College School page.

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