St Mary's School, Cambridge 7+, 11+, 13+ and 16+ Admissions: Assessments, Fees and Bursaries

St Mary's School, Cambridge admissions begin with an online application form and a registration fee, followed by an age-matched assessment and an interview, with Year 9 (13+) the point at which most girls from local prep schools join. Girls can also enter at 7+ and 11+ and at 12+, 14+ and 16+, and the school takes applications for all year groups, subject to places.

The assessment is the school's own and is built around an online adaptive assessment covering verbal, numerical and non-verbal reasoning, a timed writing task and an interview. Senior School assessments run on one Saturday at the end of January each year, while Junior School girls are assessed throughout the year.

Entry points and places

The school takes girls at Preschool (age 3), throughout the Junior School and at Year 7, Year 8, Year 9, Year 10 and Year 12, with Year 9 the largest point of entry for girls from local prep schools. Places depend on availability in each year group, and a waiting list operates when a year is full. The school does not publish a number of places for each year.

For Year 9 the school creates an extra class to accommodate the prep school intake. Typical class sizes are up to 21 in the Junior School, up to 24 in Years 7 to 9, between 10 and 20 for GCSE groups and no more than 14 for A Level.

• Junior School (7+ to 10+): taster day, online adaptive assessment, creative writing, informal interview
• 11+ (Year 7): January assessment day
• 12+ (Year 8): English and mathematics papers
• 13+ (Year 9): pre-testing in Year 6 or Year 7, or the assessment day
• 14+ (Year 10): English, mathematics and science papers
• 16+ (Year 12): predicted grades or subject assessments

How the 13+ assessment works

The 13+ assessment for Year 9 entry is sat in January, and girls may sit it in Year 6 or in Year 7. A girl in Year 6 takes an online adaptive assessment covering vocabulary, mathematics, non-verbal ability (shapes, patterns and spatial awareness) and skills such as proofreading, perceptual speed and accuracy, then a 30 minute handwritten creative writing task and a short interview.

A girl in Year 7 sits a one-hour handwritten English paper and a one-hour handwritten mathematics paper, again followed by a short interview. Girls applying closer to entry sit an online adaptive assessment in verbal, numerical and non-verbal ability, a 30 minute persuasive writing exam and an interview with a member of the Senior Leadership Team.

The school describes the tests as assessing age-appropriate learning and states that no special preparation is needed. The pages read do not name an external test provider, and they do not say whether an early sitting leads to a conditional offer.

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How the 11+ and Junior School assessments work

The 11+ assessment for Year 7 combines an online adaptive assessment in verbal, numerical and non-verbal ability with a 30 minute creative writing exam, held in school under exam conditions on the January assessment day. Girls applying for Years 7 to 9 are invited to a pre-assessment tea beforehand, where they see the school and meet current and other prospective students.

Girls entering the Junior School from Year 2 to Year 6 spend a taster day in lessons and sit an online adaptive assessment in vocabulary, mathematics and non-verbal ability, plus a 20 to 25 minute creative writing exam. Younger girls take part in play-based sessions in the classroom. At 12+ the papers are one hour of English (comprehension and creative writing) and one hour of mathematics, and sample papers are available to download from the assessments page.

Registration and the admissions timeline

Registration means completing the online application form, or emailing the Admissions team, and paying the non-refundable application fee, which is higher for a boarding place than for a day place. The school advises that the process typically starts at least 12 months before joining, although later applications are considered when places remain. Preschool and Junior School have no formal deadline and accept applications all year.

Families move through five stages from first enquiry to accepting a place, and the school sets the order for each of them in the steps below.

• Find out more through the prospectus, an open event or a visit
• Submit the online application form and application fee
• Sit the assessment and attend the interview; the school requests references from the current school
• Receive a decision, which is usually made by the end of the week after the Senior School assessment, with scholarship outcomes shared at the same time
• Accept the place and pay the deposit; the acceptance deadline for Year 7 and Year 9 is the first Monday in March, and for the Sixth Form it is the first week in January

Interviews and references

Every prospective girl is interviewed, and the school requests references from her current school. Junior School applicants have an informal conversation with a member of the Junior School Leadership Team, while Senior School and Sixth Form applicants are interviewed by a member of the Senior Leadership Team. The school says it aims to keep the process relaxed.

For Year 9 entry, the admissions team requests a Headteacher reference and a copy of the latest school report once the application is submitted. Where a girl has an Educational Psychologist's report, the school asks for the most recent one at registration so that adjustments can be made to the assessment.

Scholarships and bursaries

Scholarships at St Mary's Cambridge are called enrichment scholarships, with awards in art, creative writing, dance, design, drama (performance and backstage and technical), music, sport and STEM, and they are usually worth 5% of day fees. Entry points are Year 7, Year 9 and Year 12, and a STEM award is offered only at Year 9 and Lower Sixth. No girl can hold more than two awards with fee remission, which caps the reduction at 10%.

Each scholarship has its own assessment, such as a portfolio, a recorded piece, an audition or a presentation, followed by an interview. Music benchmarks are Grade 4 for Year 7, Grade 5 for Year 9 and Grade 7 for the Sixth Form. Year 7 and Year 12 awards usually last two years and Year 9 awards usually last five.

Bursaries are discretionary and means-tested, awarded on a sliding scale of financial need and assessed on the school's behalf by Bursary Administration Limited through an online portal and a video meeting. Preschool, Junior School and international pupils are not normally eligible. The school does not publish a maximum share of fees.

Fees and what they include

Fees are charged per term and rise by stage, from Preschool through the Junior School to a single day rate that covers Year 7 to Upper Sixth; weekly and full boarding rates apply from Year 7, and full boarding from Year 5. The figures for each stage are listed on the school's fees page.

Boarding fees include books, stationery, all meals and boarding trips. Day lunches, music lessons, LAMDA, clubs, trips and visits are charged separately. A deposit is paid on acceptance, equal to a set sum for a day place and one term's fees for a boarding place, and it is deducted from or refunded against the final term's bill when the girl leaves. The Preschool and Junior School carry a sibling discount of 5% for the youngest child.

Where pupils join from

Most girls who join in Year 9 come from local prep schools, which is why the school forms an extra Year 9 class. The school does not name formal feeder or partner schools on the pages read.

The school also runs its own Preschool and Junior School on the same site, and the Junior School assessment is separate from the Senior School assessment day. According to the pages read, there is no automatic transfer from Junior to Senior School, so families already in the Junior School should confirm the route with Admissions.

How to prepare

The school states that no special preparation is needed, so the most useful preparation is familiarity with the formats. For the online adaptive assessment, that means practising vocabulary, number problems and shape and pattern questions on screen, and for Year 6 pre-testing it also includes short accuracy and proofreading exercises.

For the written elements, a girl can practise a 30 minute piece of creative or persuasive writing, and for Year 7 or Year 8 sittings, timed one-hour English and mathematics papers using the sample papers on the assessments page. Attending the pre-assessment tea and an open event makes the assessment day itself more familiar. Interviews with a member of the Senior Leadership Team are conversational, so talking through favourite subjects and activities is enough rehearsal.

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• The ISEB Common Pre-Test explained
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Preparing for the St Mary's School, Cambridge 13+ with Taylor Tuition

Families preparing for the St Mary's School, Cambridge 13+ usually come to us a year or so before the assessment, though shorter runs work where the foundations are already sound. Having prepared pupils for entry to leading independent and grammar schools, with placements including Westminster, St Paul's, Wycombe Abbey and Eton, our tutors build each programme around the format the school actually uses, whether a written paper, an online pre-test, an interview or a combination of them.

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