The Mathematical Olympiad for Girls was introduced by UKMT in 2011 to address the documented underrepresentation of female students in the senior end of the UK Olympiad pipeline. Fifteen years later, the MOG sits as the parallel senior-level written competition to the BMO and feeds the UK selection process for the European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad (EGMO), held each April. This article is an editorial retrospective on what the MOG has done — and what it has not done — for the senior cohort.
The numbers since 2011
Annual MOG entries have grown from approximately 1,500 in the inaugural 2011 sitting to approximately 4,000 in the 2024–25 season — a 2.5x increase over fifteen years. The growth has come predominantly from UK boarding schools and selective sixth-form colleges; the participating-school list at the bottom of the UKMT MOG results page is the canonical record.
The EGMO selection cohort — typically twenty students invited to a residential training week each spring — is small enough that the MOG itself functions both as a wide on-ramp and as the upper-tier selection paper in one. This is a different design from the senior route (where SMC is the wide on-ramp and BMO Round 1 is the selection paper), and the consequence is that strong Year-9 and Year-10 students can compete on the same paper as Year-13 students.
The age-range design choice
The MOG is open to female students from Year 9 upwards. This is one of the most distinctive design choices in the senior UKMT pipeline. Where the BMO restricts entry to Year 12 and Year 13 students with UK nationality or three years of UK education, the MOG opens a senior Olympiad paper to motivated female students three full years earlier. The trade-off is that the paper has to be readable by a Year 9 cohort and still selective for a Year 13 cohort; the Subtrust calibration accordingly emphasises problem-solving depth over advanced syllabus knowledge.
The MOG opens a senior Olympiad paper to motivated female students three full years earlier than BMO Round 1. The trade-off is that the paper has to be readable by a Year 9 cohort and still selective for a Year 13 cohort.
Has it worked?
Two answers, depending on what “working” means. By the headline measure — UK EGMO team performance over fifteen years — the answer is yes. The UK has consistently ranked in the European top five since the inaugural EGMO in 2012, with gold medals appearing in most years and the UK team’s mean medal count above the European average.
By the secondary measure — female representation in the BMO Round 2 cohort and the IMO Team UK — the picture is more mixed. Female participation in BMO Round 2 has increased modestly over the period, with Distinction holders appearing every year and IMO Team UK female representation reaching a meaningful proportion in some years. But the structural underrepresentation that motivated MOG’s introduction has been reduced rather than eliminated.
This second measure is the harder one to move, and the MOG was never going to fix it on its own. The pipeline-level intervention required would need to begin in primary school (where many female students drop out of competitive maths before encountering UKMT at all) and continue through every stage. The MOG is best understood as a senior-end correction, not a pipeline-wide solution.
What MOG looks like for an international student
For international female students at UK schools, the MOG is the most accessible senior-level Olympiad. The September sitting timing means preparation can begin in the summer holidays before Year 9 or Year 12 begins. The open-entry design means there is no preliminary qualifier — any female student at a participating school can be entered. And the EGMO selection cohort is wide enough that strong MOG performance can lead to international Olympiad representation without needing to navigate the BMO Round 1 eligibility restrictions.
The MOG deep-dive page at /competitions/mog/ covers the format, eligibility, sample problem style, and preparation reading list in full. For one-on-one questions about whether your school enters the MOG, or about preparing for the September sitting, the WhatsApp advisor is the fastest route.
Looking forward
The MOG enters its sixteenth year in autumn 2026. The Subtrust has not announced any structural changes to the paper format or eligibility, suggesting confidence in the current design. The expansion thinking — if any — is more likely to focus on supporting the lower stages (a Junior Mathematical Olympiad for Girls is occasionally discussed but has not materialised) than on changing the MOG itself.
For the EGMO 2027 cycle (selection beginning with the MOG September 2026 sitting), the standard preparation calendar is unchanged from 2025. Our preparation editorial for the autumn cycle will appear in late August.