Streamlining TOEFL for graduate admissions

As the world’s population steadily rises from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion by 2050, according to the Pew Research Center there will be more demand for electricity, food, water, housing, fossil fuels, and, given the newspaper that this article is being published in, higher education. The competition for commodities such as oil, natural gas, and coal may perhaps be offset by escalating investments in green jobs and green industries. But the demand for American higher education is likely to accelerate as the amalgamation of population growth and global prosperity yield more financially and academically capable international students.

TOEFL, or the Test of English as a Foreign Language, is taken by hundreds of thousands of students in over 130 countries per year. Over 7,000 educational institutions recognize or mandate prospective students to take and pass the TOEFL as a prerequisite of enrollment. Although students from Bangalore to Beijing frequently gripe about the exorbitant prices they are charged per examination (India-$165, China-$206), the purpose of this article is not to question the moral principles or business practices of ETS, the operator of standardized examinations such as the TOEFL. The purpose is to breach the long-held institutional dogma that all students who have not completed an undergraduate degree in an English-speaking environment must take and pass the TOEFL in order to meet enrollment standards in graduate programs across the nation.

Columbia University, along with countless others, have adopted this defacto, non-peer-reviewed or sufficiently assessed agreement that students who did not receive an education wherein English was the primary language of instruction would be required to prove their fluency in English through this internationally accepted examination. I am not bashing the critical importance that TOEFL plays as a lubricant for international educational exchange. Nor is my intention to convey that the TOEFL examination is in any way substandard or inadequately designed. The intractable problem here lies not with the content, but with the irrational rationality that underpins graduate admissions requirements for international students in this country.

Let’s analyze this further with a hypothetical case that, upon deeper reflection, may be more realistic than hypothetical in nature. Let’s imagine that there is a prospective candidate—let’s call him Sam—applying to a graduate program at Teachers College. Say Sam was born, raised, and received a college education in Taiwan. In addition, from kindergarten through 12th grade, Sam attended international schools where English was the language of instruction. After college, during which instruction was conducted in Mandarin Chinese, Sam pursued an M.B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduation, he found himself disinterested in a career in business and decided to pursue a law degree at UCLA. Sam studied hard, completed the necessary requirements, and with luck on his side, managed to complete both an M.B.A. and a J.D. at prestigious universities in the United States before the age of 32.

Fast forward to today. Sam, being the life-long student that he is, decides that he wants to broaden his knowledge of curriculum and teaching. Thus, he applies to a master’s program at Teachers College and is immediately told that he needs to take the TOEFL again, because his scores expire every two years, and also because he did not complete his undergraduate education in an English-speaking environment. In other words, Sam, an individual who was formally educated in English throughout his youth, is still required to re-take the TOEFL. This system seems both bizarre and Byzantine. I am aware that this system is deeply entrenched in the admissions policies of universities around the nation, but that does not make it fair—certainly, there must be a more equitable, progressive, and common sense standard for measuring an applicant’s ability to speak, read, and write English.

Perhaps a system in which a specific number of years of formal educational training in English can exempt an applicant from taking and re-taking the TOEFL ought to be considered. I admit that I do not have the most optimal solution at this time. But I do know pecuniary exploitation when I see it. The fact is that business-as-usual may be lucrative for ETS and participating universities, but it comes at a higher ethical cost and undermines the fundamental American principle of fair play.

The author is an Ed.M candidate in the International Educational Development at Teachers College.