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This cycle, in one place

GCSE and A-Level exam dates 2027

Two calendars that between them govern the next twelve months for a sixth-former: Oxbridge admissions for 2027 entry, and the examination series for summer 2027. Both are here because a parent should not have to hold them in their head, and because knowing when a thing happens is most of knowing when to start preparing for it.

Every date on this page comes from the university, from UCAS, from the awarding body or from JCQ. None of it is copied from another tutoring site. Where nobody has published a date yet, this page says so instead of estimating one.

Oxbridge · 2027 entry

Two kinds of work, and a hard line between them on 15 October.

Almost everything a family gets wrong about this calendar comes from treating it as one long run-up to an interview in December. It is not. It is a writing job that ends in the middle of October and a talking job that starts a month later, and they need different preparation. The dates below are grouped that way rather than listed flat.

One thing to say plainly, because it catches people every year: Oxford has scrapped most of its own admissions tests. For 2027 entry, English, Modern Languages, History and Classics need no admissions test at all. The social-science courses use TARA, and Law uses the LNAT. If you are reading advice anywhere that mentions preparing for the MLAT, the ELAT, the HAT, the TSA or the CAT, that advice is out of date.

Phase one — up to 15 October

Written work and the personal statement

Everything in this phase is writing, and all of it is due before the middle of October. What goes wrong here is almost always the same thing: the statement is started in September, and the three questions that replaced the old free-text statement are answered as though they were still one essay. They are not. They are three, they are marked as three, and the second one is the one candidates waste.

  • 12–16 October 2026 UAT-UK

    UAT-UK admissions tests

    TARA is sat on Wednesday 14 October. Booking closed at 18:00 on 28 September 2026 and there is no late entry.

  • 15 October 2026, 18:00 UCAS

    UCAS deadline for Oxford and Cambridge

    No extensions. An application that arrives at 18:01 is an application for the following year.

  • 22 October 2026, 18:00 Cambridge

    My Cambridge Application deadline

    A second form, separate from UCAS, and missed every year by people who think the 15th was the end of it.

  • 10 November 2026 Oxford

    Oxford written work reaches the college

    With its cover sheet. Check the course page: not every course asks for it, and the ones that do are strict about the form it arrives in.

Phase two — mid-October to Christmas

Interview and subject preparation

The invitation arrives with little notice and the interview follows quickly. What goes wrong here is preparation that rehearses answers instead of arguments: an interviewer will push on whatever is said, and a rehearsed answer has nowhere to go on the second question. The work is thinking out loud under pressure, in front of somebody who has read the same book.

  • 16 November 2026 UAT-UK

    UAT-UK results released

  • Mid-November to early December 2026 Oxford

    Oxford shortlisting; interview invitations sent

    Oxford's own wording for when a candidate hears. There is no fixed day.

  • December 2026 Oxford

    Oxford interviews, held online

  • 1–18 December 2026 Cambridge

    Cambridge interviews

    Online or in person, depending on the course and the college.

After the interviews

Decisions

Nothing to prepare, and nothing we sell into. It is here because a parent looking at this page in November wants to know when it ends.

  • 12 January 2027 Oxford

    Oxford decisions released via UCAS

  • 13 January 2027, 18:00 UCAS

    UCAS equal consideration deadline

    For every other university. Applications in by this time are all considered together.

  • Not yet published Cambridge

    Cambridge decisions and the winter pool

    Cambridge has not published a date for this cycle and confirms it to each applicant directly. We would rather print nothing than print a guess.

If you want help with it

Leah coaches the written half and the interview half, in humanities, modern languages, English and the social sciences. It is priced by the hour, which is different from the school-age teaching, where sessions are sold in blocks.

University admissions coaching, and what an hour of it contains

GCSE and A-Level · summer 2027

The series starts in May. For a linguist it starts in April.

The written papers run from the second week of May to the third week of June, and a family planning around that will be planning around the wrong month if there is a language in the mix. The speaking examinations in Spanish and French are timetabled earlier, in a window during April and May that each school picks its own day inside. That is the single most useful thing on this page for a modern linguist: the first examination your child sits is not in May, and the preparation for it has to begin in January.

What goes wrong in this phase is almost always sequencing. Revision plans are built backwards from the written papers, the speaking window arrives while everybody is still on paper one, and the piece of the qualification that rewards months of steady practice is the piece that gets three weeks.

  • April and May 2027 AQA

    Speaking examinations, GCSE and A-Level Spanish and French Starts in January

    The awarding bodies timetable a window of up to five weeks and the school chooses its own day inside it. The exact window is published in each board's timetable, so check your own board — and note that this is the first thing in the year to happen, not the last.

  • 10 May 2027 JCQ

    First examination on the JCQ common timetable

    GCSE and GCE alike.

  • 18 June 2027 JCQ

    Final GCSE examination on the common timetable

  • 22 June 2027 JCQ

    Final GCE examination on the common timetable

  • 23 June 2027 JCQ

    Contingency day

    Candidates must stay available. It is not a spare day off.

  • 12 August 2027 JCQ

    A-Level results released to candidates

  • 19 August 2027 JCQ

    GCSE results released to candidates

These are series-level dates, which are the same for every board. Individual paper dates are not published here on purpose: they differ by board, several 2027 timetables are still marked provisional, and a wrong paper date is worse than no paper date. Check your own board's timetable — AQA · Pearson Edexcel · Eduqas.

Checked against Oxford, Cambridge, UCAS, JCQ and UAT-UK on 13 September 2026. Every date here comes from the university, UCAS, the awarding body or JCQ, never from another tutoring site. Where a date has not been published we say so rather than estimate it.

This page is not a substitute for your school’s own timetable or your child’s examination board. If a date here disagrees with the one your school has given you, your school is the one to act on — and we would be glad to be told, at admissions@therussetcollective.co.uk.