Does the TARA Writing Task actually matter for you?

Of the 16 Oxford and UCL courses that require TARA for 2027 entry, only 2 have confirmed the Writing Task doesn't count towards their decision. Both are Oxford courses, both are economics-adjacent, and both said so directly.

For the other 14, including all six of UCL's courses, neither university has said anything in either direction. Nobody outside those admissions offices actually knows, and a book, an article or a tutor who tells you otherwise is guessing.

Our own view, and it's a view rather than a confirmed fact, is that this uncertainty is a reason to keep taking it seriously, not to relax.

Even on a course where the essay isn't the headline factor, it can still be the detail that separates two applicants who otherwise look identical on paper. More on why further down.

Three things are stated outright by UAT-UK, the body that runs TARA, and they're worth separating from everything that follows because they're fact, not judgement.

Every applicant sits it, regardless of whether their course uses it. All three TARA modules are compulsory.

There's no version of the test where you skip the Writing Task because your course doesn't need it.

UAT-UK itself never scores it. Unlike Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, which are each marked on a 1.0 to 9.0 scale, the Writing Task carries no score at all.

What gets sent to universities is the response itself, not a number.

A copy goes to every university on your UCAS form that requires TARA. What each one then does with it is entirely up to that university, and most haven't said.

Oxford is the only university to have confirmed anything publicly, and only for two of its ten TARA courses:

Economics and Management, and History and Economics. UCL hasn't confirmed a position for any of its six.

Sixteen courses, two universities, one compulsory test.

The course list and UCAS codes below come straight from UAT-UK's own Course List for 2027 Entry, the official document that defines which courses require which test, rather than from a competitor's summary of it.

The "official position" column comes from each university's own course pages.

Here's how that breaks down:

The two confirmed "no" courses are both economics courses, not the two most humanities-leaning options on the list.

That's a useful check on the general pattern:

"essays matter more for humanities, less for STEM" is a reasonable steer, but not a rule that holds for every course.

"Not stated" doesn't mean a course has ruled the Writing Task out.

It means the course hasn't said either way, and most students reading that assume the opposite of what we'd assume: that if a university hasn't said no, an essay must factor into the decision somewhere.

That gap, between what's actually known and what people assume, is exactly what our "likely" and "unlikely" calls in the table above are meant to answer. Not proof of anything.

A reasoned answer to a question neither university has actually answered.

We call it likely for Oxford's other eight courses because they already lean on written argument elsewhere in how they assess candidates.

PPE, History and Politics, Human Sciences and the two Psychology joint courses are all built around constructing and defending a position, whether that's in interview or in submitted written work, before a candidate ever sits TARA.

A 750-word essay fits naturally into how these courses already judge people.

We call it unlikely for UCL's six courses because the opposite is true.

Computer Science, both Mechanical Engineering courses and Robotics and Artificial Intelligence select primarily on quantitative and technical ability: maths grades, the two scored TARA modules, and in some cases technical interviews.

An essay on epistemology or political philosophy is a weaker signal for what these courses are actually trying to measure.

None of that means the Writing Task goes unread on an "unlikely" course. It's still compulsory, and while UAT-UK never scores it, the file that reaches an admissions tutor still contains what you actually wrote, not a probability of whether anyone opens it.

Here's the case for taking it seriously even on a course in the "unlikely" column. Everyone applying to a TARA course at Oxford or UCL has already cleared a high bar to get to the application stage, and the numbers back that up.

Across Oxford as a whole, 85.6% of admitted students achieved A*AA or better at A-level, and 45.5% achieved three A* grades or better, according to Oxford's own admissions statistics.

Entry requirements for individual TARA courses sit in the same range:

Economics and Management asks for A*AA as standard, UCL's Computer Science BSc asks for A*A*A.

TARA's own scoring is built so that a typical strong candidate lands around 4.5 on the 1.0 to 9.0 scale, which means a meaningful share of a competitive applicant pool will land close together on the two modules that are actually marked too.

The Writing Task also gives an admissions tutor something the two scored modules structurally can't: evidence of how you think, how you build and defend an argument, and how you write, under real time pressure.

Those are valuable skills in their own right for many of these courses, not just a proxy for reasoning ability, and the only other place they show up anywhere in your application is your personal statement, which typically gets weeks of drafting and editing help that the Writing Task doesn't.

When two applicants look near-identical on grades, statement and scored modules, something still has to decide between them.

The Writing Task is one of the only pieces of evidence in the file produced in real time, under exam conditions, rather than redrafted over weeks.

That's exactly the kind of thing an admissions tutor reaches for when splitting two applicants who are otherwise hard to separate.

None of that is an official UAT-UK or university statement. It's our own read of how admissions decisions tend to work in practice, and we're not able to promise it's how your specific application will be judged.

But it's also the reason we wouldn't tell anyone applying to any of the 16 courses, including the two confirmed "no" ones, to skip preparing for it entirely.

Not the same amount of effort everywhere. Here's how we'd split it across the three groups in the table above.

Economics and Management, History and Economics (confirmed no). You still sit it, because it's compulsory either way.

Aim for one competent, well-structured pass so it doesn't count against you, then put the bulk of your prep hours into Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, which are the two modules these courses have actually confirmed they use.

Oxford's other eight courses (likely used). Treat this closer to a mini personal statement.

It's worth real planning practice, not just a read-through of the format, since this is the one part of a humanities or social science application where you build an argument from scratch rather than answering someone else's questions.

UCL's six courses (unlikely used). Don't skip it, but don't over-invest either.

A solid, well-organised answer covers the tiebreaker case above without eating the hours better spent on Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, which are more clearly central to how these courses assess you.

Whichever group you're in, the actual mechanics, choosing a statement, planning in the time you get, and structuring a 750-word answer, are the same.

Our full guide to the TARA Writing Task walks through that part in detail, including a reusable paragraph structure and three practice prompts.