All About the TOEFL
Although every non-native English speaking applicant needs to take the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), most do not exactly know the role this test will play in their application or even in their future graduate career. Originally, the TOEFL was merely a metric, its score presumably functioning as an analog for the taker’s English abilities: the assumption was that the higher the score, the better you knew English. But the original TOEFL proved to be a poor indicator of a student’s future ability to handle university-level English, primarily because it did not measure the test taker’s speaking ability. To address this significant oversight, ETS launched the Internet-based TOEFL (iBT) in 2004, and with that change, TOEFL became not just a test OF English, but a Test IN English. This change in preposition indicated that TOEFL would test for more than just the mechanics of the language, but also try to capture the rhetorical and logical sophistication of the test taker’s communication skills as well. And to its credit, the iBT does come much closer than its predecessors did at predicting a student’s ability to negotiate the more subtle communication challenges of university discourse.
So, what does this mean for applicants as they prepare for their TOEFL? First of all, keep in mind these basic facts:
ONE: Schools are generally serious about their minimum requirements. This means that if a school says it will accept a 90 (a perfect score is 120; more on scoring here), then you will not be more competitive if you score a 110. The admissions office is usually not impressed by a higher score. Your other application materials will be what impresses the school. As a matter of fact, in rare instances, your essay or your letter of recommendation might be so strong that the school will overlook a TOEFL score that falls short by no more than 4 points. But don’t bank on this. Your goal is to meet the school’s minimum requirement! (Here is a partial list of various Schools’ TOEFL requirements)
TWO: One test does not substitute for another. Notice that I did not say above that your other standardized test results might compensate for a poor TOEFL score. And the same is true in the other direction: a strong TOEFL score will not counterbalance a poor GRE or GMAT. Here is what one friend of Strictly English wrote me recently on this topic: “I’ve also heard some people saying that when international students apply to grad schools, even when they couldn’t get a really high score on the verbal section of the GRE, their great score on the TOEFL might be able to compensate for it to some extent.” These “I’ve-heard-some-people-say” arguments are just not true. The four admissions officers that presented at the resent AIGAC conference in NYC all agreed that the TOEFL will not make up for a low score on the GMAT verbal. They were very clear on this point, so don’t trick yourself into a fantasy that you can compensate for one test with another.
Although most of you will be free of the TOEFL once you enter Graduate School, there is a growing number of institutions that are now requiring students who are already in programs to retake their TOEFL if they are going to begin working as Teaching Assistants (TAs). This is because many students who meet the admission office’s TOEFL requirements did so with really high Reading and Listening scores, and a very low Speaking score. Schools are now requiring that if you’re going to work as a TA, you need to have a Speaking score of 26. If you did not achieve a 26 when you first took the TOEFL, then you will have to retake it before you can begin your TA-ship. For some students at Southern Universities in America, where one accreditation agency is now requiring this from their schools, this is causing a huge delay in their studies. They cannot continue studying until they have a TA-ship, and they can’t start their TA position until they have a 26 on the TOEFL Speaking section. Only 10% of all test takers achieve a 26, and most people take the test ten times before achieving that score! Therefore, if you think you’ll be wanting a Teaching Assistantship in graduate school, you might want to shoot for the 26 now even if you won’t need it until your second year of study.
Post written by Jon Hodge of Strictly English.