Toefl score & admission..

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satyad18
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Toefl score & admission..

Post by satyad18 » Wed Nov 25, 2009 9:00 am

Hi everyone,
I'm an international applicant. My TOEFL-iBT score is 93. I tried mailing some of good universities and got reply that my admission is risky or not possible as my TOEFL is below 100. Should I retake the exam or go for universities in the relatively lower rankings.? What are my chances in each case.?

Mataka
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Re: Toefl score & admission..

Post by Mataka » Wed Nov 25, 2009 9:28 am

You can try to retake the exam, or maybe take the IELTS instead of the TOEFL, some people find it easier.

Dream
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Re: Toefl score & admission..

Post by Dream » Sun Dec 06, 2009 9:06 am

Oh. Really? Do schools consider 100 as the minimun requirement? What schools are you talking about?

Mataka
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Re: Toefl score & admission..

Post by Mataka » Sun Dec 06, 2009 4:01 pm

Well I think it's an unofficial cutoff. I think most universities have an actual real cutoff at 92 (they won't even consider your application if your score is below that cutoff), but there is also an unofficial cutoff around 100. Essentially this just means that the rest of your application will have to be really strong to balance out a TOEFL score of 93.

Dream
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Re: Toefl score & admission..

Post by Dream » Mon Dec 07, 2009 8:35 am

I want to know why the cutoff is 92. On UCSB website, it is clearly stated to be 80. And I think most schools pay more attention to the speaking score than the overall score.

Mataka
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Re: Toefl score & admission..

Post by Mataka » Mon Dec 07, 2009 12:05 pm

Yes some schools like UCSB have a minimum of 80. It's true that the speaking portion is probably the most important one, but that's because it is usually the ''hardest'' one (if you can't listen-read-write in english, chances are you don't speak english very well either, but the other way around may not be true). Moreover, those are just cutoffs, if you want to have a fighting chance to be admitted at a school like UCSB then it is very advisable to have some decent score.

Ekaterina
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Re: Toefl score & admission..

Post by Ekaterina » Sat Dec 12, 2009 7:14 am

My TOEFL-iBT score is 69. I asked professors from 3 Universities what to do and only one advised me to retake the test.

What schools wrote you that 93 most likely wasn't enough?

mike164
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Re: Toefl score & admission..

Post by mike164 » Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:08 pm

Dream wrote:Oh. Really? Do schools consider 100 as the minimun requirement? What schools are you talking about?
Mataka wrote:Well I think it's an unofficial cutoff.
The official minimum required score for schools like Harvard, Columbia, Texas Austin... is 100.

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grae313
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Re: Toefl score & admission..

Post by grae313 » Fri Dec 18, 2009 1:59 pm

Ekaterina wrote:My TOEFL-iBT score is 69. I asked professors from 3 Universities what to do and only one advised me to retake the test.

What schools wrote you that 93 most likely wasn't enough?
You're going to have a hard time getting into even the worst US schools with a 69. You need to retake the test. The best schools have minimums of around 100, second and third tier schools have minimums around 80, but the better you do the easier it is for a school to justify admitting you.

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satyad18
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Re: Toefl score & admission..

Post by satyad18 » Sun Dec 20, 2009 12:30 pm

University of Chicago and SUNY-Stony Brook specifically told me not to even think about appying there with a TOEFL score of 93!! Others were kind of okay with my score, but said that importance would be given to the speaking section.

admissionprof
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Re: Toefl score & admission..

Post by admissionprof » Sun Jan 10, 2010 7:36 pm

grae313 wrote:
Ekaterina wrote:My TOEFL-iBT score is 69. I asked professors from 3 Universities what to do and only one advised me to retake the test.

What schools wrote you that 93 most likely wasn't enough?
You're going to have a hard time getting into even the worst US schools with a 69. You need to retake the test. The best schools have minimums of around 100, second and third tier schools have minimums around 80, but the better you do the easier it is for a school to justify admitting you.

I'm an admissions director at a second tier school. We generally like to see scores over 100, but will not immediately exclude a lower score. Actually, we have found that students from Indonesia and Russia with somewhat lower scores end up speaking pretty well, whereas students from India and China do not. This is based on knowing about admissions for the past 20 years. I have no idea why this would be the case--it may be a function of the method of English study in those countries.

Richwest
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Re: Toefl score & admission..

Post by Richwest » Wed Oct 12, 2011 4:23 am

you can retake it, if the desired school doesn't want to admit you. but if you don't mind going somewhere else why not do that?

mikelynn77
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Re: Toefl score & admission..

Post by mikelynn77 » Fri Nov 25, 2011 1:53 am

Well, guys that’s good news for you that you scored 93 in first attempt. I must say that when I took TOEFL test last year than only got 70 in first attempt but after than I took TOEFL study guides and online courses which prepare you for the test and these guides asses different methods of getting a good score, I got around 150 in second attempt. So, don’t worry about it now if you getting good college than take admission otherwise with the help of TOEFL test study guides you will make better than this. Now choice is yours.



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