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Write with us

We publish admissions test questions and the worked solutions candidates practise on. If writing them is the sort of thing you would enjoy, we would like to hear from you.

The work. Writing questions with the worked solution that goes under them, and short method notes that explain a technique rather than a single problem.
Where you studied is not a criterion. It is not what we select on, and the reason the field leans a particular way is set out below rather than left implied.
Everything written is checked, and some of it is rejected. That is the standard, it applies to our own questions too, and it is worth knowing before you start.
It is paid. Terms are agreed for the piece of work rather than posted here.
We are small. There may be nothing open when you write, and we would rather say so than keep an application warm.

The work

Questions, the worked solution under each one, and the short method notes that explain a technique rather than a single problem.

A question is not finished when it has an answer. It is finished when each wrong option is one a real candidate would actually choose, and the solution says which mistake leads there. That is most of the work and it is the part people underestimate.

What the work needs

Four things, and they are all about what you can do rather than where you have been.

Real depth in at least one subject. Mathematics, physics, chemistry or biology, comfortably past the level the paper tests, because a question written at the edge of your own understanding shows.
Direct experience of a demanding admissions process, either sat or taught. It does not have to be this one.
The habit of deriving an answer rather than recognising it. In practice: given a question you did not write, you can work it out from the statement alone, and then say why somebody would pick each of the other options.
Willingness to have your work checked and sometimes turned down. Every question goes through the same checks and a meaningful share do not pass them. Nothing about that is personal, and if it would grate, this is not enjoyable work.

Where you studied is not a criterion

It is worth saying this plainly rather than leaving it to be inferred, because admissions work has an obvious way of going wrong here.

The ESAT is sat for Imperial, Cambridge, Oxford and UCL. So the people who have been through this particular process, and who therefore think of themselves as qualified to help with it, are drawn from a narrow pool. That is a fact about who tends to write to us. It is not a requirement, it is not what we select on, and treating it as a proxy for ability would be both unfair and a bad way to find good questions.

What the work needs is in the four points above. A person who can write one question properly and defend every option in it is useful to us whatever is on their degree certificate, and a person who cannot is not, whatever is on theirs.

One related thing, since it comes up. The ESAT was first sat in October 2024, so almost nobody has sat the ESAT itself. Anyone who took an admissions test for engineering before that sat the ENGAA, the NSAA or the PAT. Experience of those is relevant, and we would rather you described what you actually took than stretched it.

How what you write would be checked

Worth knowing in advance, because it sets what the work feels like and it is stricter than most people expect.

The answer is re-derived, not confirmed. The question is worked out again independently and has to arrive at the same answer.
No second option may also be correct. This catches more problems than anything else, and it is the check people are most surprised by.
Every wrong option has to be reachable. Each one names the mistake that leads a candidate to it, and an option nobody would pick is a wasted option.

The same standard applies to everything we publish. How it works in more detail is on our how we work page, and the material it produces is free to read in our ESAT practice questions before you decide whether you want any part of it.

Getting in touch

There is no form and no application window. An email saying what you would write and where your subject depth is tells us more than a CV does.

If you would like to show rather than describe, the most useful thing you can send is one question you have written, with its worked solution and a line on each wrong option saying which mistake leads there. That is the actual job, and one good example settles it faster than anything else.

A question you send stays yours: we never publish or use it without your agreement and payment. If no work follows, we delete your email and anything you sent within 12 months; if work follows, we keep them for six years after the work ends, as our privacy page explains.

Write to hello@mintnib.com. A school or college looking for mock papers rather than work wants our schools page.