TOEFL Score Requirements for Grad School on the New 1–6 Band Scale

Which graduate programmes does my TOEFL band already clear?

Each built-in requirement tier below was checked against the institution's own graduate admissions or English language page and summarized from the institution's wording on 8 September 2026. Rows sort alphabetically by institution. Alphabetical order avoids implying a judgement about quality.

• Clear: overall and every published section floor met
• Within half a band: total shortfall is exactly 0.5
• Short: total shortfall is more than 0.5
• Neutral: not judged, or no figure entered

A band shown in italics with a derived tag was calculated by this page from a 0–120 figure using the ETS concordance. It is an estimate. The school's own published number remains authoritative.

Add a programme that still publishes a 0–120 number

If your target department's page still says “TOEFL 100”, type that figure here. The page converts it with the official ETS ranges, marks the result as derived, and scores it against your bands alongside everything else. Entries stay in this browser only.

What is the graduate school TOEFL minimum now that scores are bands?

ETS introduced an updated 1–6 band scale in half steps for tests taken from 21 January 2026; during the two-year transition, reports also include a comparable 0–120 total. Your overall band is no longer a sum. It is the average of your four section bands rounded to the nearest half band: ETS gives 5.125 rounding down to 5 and 5.25 rounding up to 5.5.

For institutions, ETS published recommended translations. Its guide pairs a former requirement of 100 with band 5.0, 90 with 4.5 and 80 with 4.0, but each programme sets its own requirement. ETS also warned institutions about rounding up: setting 5.5 where 100 was previously required “will increase the chances of not accepting qualified candidates with an equivalent score of 100 or even higher”, because band 5 covers the whole range 95 to 106.

That last sentence is the single most useful thing on this page for anyone sitting on a 100. Under the old scale you cleared a 100 requirement exactly. Under a badly set 5.5 requirement you would not, and neither would anyone who scored 106.

The official concordance, reproduced from ETS

This table is the ETS score scale update chart. Derived bands on this page use it.

Source: ETS, TOEFL iBT Score Scale Update guide for institutions, read 8 September 2026. The 0–120 column is stated as an open-ended floor by ETS (“95+”); the closed ranges above are what those floors imply, and ETS states in prose that band 5 runs 95 to 106.

How do I read this matrix against my own scores?

1. Pick your four section bands in the strip at the top of the page. All four are needed, because your overall band is their average, not a separate number.
2. Read the verdict card. It states your overall band and counts how many rows in the current filter you clear outright, how many you miss by exactly half a band, and how many are further away.
3. Filter to the countries and degree level you are actually applying to. The counts recalculate on the filtered set, so the number you read is the number that matters to you.
4. Open the source link for any row you care about and confirm the figure yourself before you decide anything. Requirements move during a scale transition.
5. Treat any italic band with a derived tag as an estimate only. It is arithmetic on the ETS table, not a promise from the school.

Two worked examples, using the twenty rows shipped with this page and no filters:

Notice what the second column shows: an overall band of 4.5 clears UBC, which asks for 4.5 overall, even though UBC also sets a Listening floor of 5.0. That reader happens to have Listening 5.0. Drop their Listening to 4.5 and the row flips to amber while the overall band does not move at all.

Does a TOEFL requirement of 100 always become band 5.0?

No, and the rows above prove it. ETS mapped ranges, not points, so a school converting its own numbers has room to choose. Among the requirements checked for this page, four different conversion behaviours are visible.

Schools that converted mechanically

Cornell's Graduate School moved Speaking 27 to 5.5, Reading 20 to 4.0, Listening 15 to 3.5 and Writing 20 to 4.0. Every one of those is the exact band the ETS section table assigns. UBC did the same with its old 90 overall and its 22 and 21 component floors, which is why its published band floors are uneven: 22 in Listening is a band 5, but 22 in Reading is only a 4.5.

Schools that flattened the sections

Delft's MSc requirement was 100 overall with 22 in every section. It is now band 5 overall with 4.5 in every section. Flat numbers look tidier, but they move the bar: 22 in Speaking was a band 4, so Speaking got harder by half a band, while 22 in Listening was a band 5, so Listening got easier by half a band. King's College London made the same flattening choice for Band B, where the old 25 Writing floor (a band 5) became 4.5.

Schools that raised the bar

Wisconsin–Madison's old minimum was 92, which the ETS table puts in band 4.5. Its published band minimum is 5.0. Illinois's teaching assistantship floor was Speaking 24, a band 4.5 on the ETS table; the published band floor is 5.0. Neither school is doing anything improper, and neither has to explain itself, but if you were counting on a mechanical conversion you would have guessed wrong on both.

Schools that lowered component floors

UCL's Level 1 previously asked for 24 in Reading and Writing, both band 5 territory, alongside a 92 overall. The band version asks for 4.5 overall and only 4.0 in each component. On the old numbers a strong overall with a weak Reading could fail; on the new ones it passes.

Which TOEFL section minimum should grad school applicants worry about?

Section floors, not just the overall band, can determine whether a score meets the published requirement. The overall band is an average, so one weak skill is diluted by three strong ones. A section floor is not averaged with anything.

Two patterns show up repeatedly in the requirements checked for this page:

• Speaking floors attached to teaching. Illinois separates admission from teaching: band 4.0 gets you admitted with limited status, 5.0 gets you full status, and a teaching assistantship needs Speaking 5.0 on its own. Cornell does the same thing with tiers: Speaking 5.5 puts a research student in Tier A and approved to teach, Speaking 4.0 puts them in Tier B, admitted but required to sit an on-campus English Language Assessment first. If your funding is a TA line, the Speaking floor is your real requirement, not the admission floor.
• Component floors that outrank the overall band. UBC asks for 4.5 overall but 5.0 in Listening. UCL Level 5 asks for 5.5 overall but 6.0 in Speaking, the top of the scale. In both cases a candidate who comfortably clears the headline number can still be blocked by one section.

The planning consequence is concrete. If a floor sits half a band above your weakest section, raising your other three sections does nothing for that row. Retesting is one route; ask whether the programme accepts an exemption or another form of proof before booking. TOEFL scores are valid for two years from the test date, so a retake may cover more than one application cycle. Work backwards from your deadlines using the grad school application timeline before you book.

Do graduate programmes accept TOEFL MyBest scores?

MyBest is the section of your ETS score report that presents your best section results across your valid tests rather than a single sitting. Institutions describe it in exactly those terms: UBC calls them “MyBest composite scores”, Wisconsin–Madison says it “does not accept scores compiled from multiple tests”, and King's College London says “we cannot take a combination of your scores across two tests”. ETS itself is neutral on the question and tells applicants that “each institution sets its own requirements”.

Among the built-in rows on this page, refusal is the norm and acceptance is the exception. Cornell's Graduate School accepts MyBest but warns that individual fields may not. The University of Washington accepted it under its earlier policy, but its revised policy applies to admissions decisions in Autumn 2026 for students enrolling Winter 2027 or later and excludes it. Delft, Illinois, King's, UBC, UCL and Wisconsin refuse it in the policies summarized here, several of them in the same sentence that also requires every section score to come from one sitting. The twenty built-in rows have an explicit yes/no entry; if a department page says nothing about MyBest, ask the institution rather than infer an answer.

The reason schools may refuse it is not suspicion of the applicant. A MyBest set can pair a Speaking score from March with a Reading score from November, so it does not describe any single day's performance, and a school may want section floors met together. If a programme is silent, do not infer single-sitting acceptance or refusal; ask. The wording for that email is below.

Does the graduate school or the department set the TOEFL requirement?

Both can matter, but the central and programme pages may use different rules. Most rows in the matrix are graduate school floors: university-wide minimums set by a central office, with any stated exemptions. Departments may set additional standards, often higher, and applicants need to check both.

Illinois states the trap plainly: its admissions minimums “are not equivalent to minimums required for holding a teaching assistantship”, and not all of its exemptions apply to assistantship holders. Cornell says the Graduate School accepts MyBest while individual fields may not. Wisconsin–Madison's lower tier is available only “with program approval”.

You may need to read two pages for an application, and they may live in different places. The graduate school floor is on the central admissions or graduate studies site, usually under “English language proficiency”. The departmental figure is on the programme's own admissions page, sometimes in an FAQ or a PDF. A page may still use a 0–120 number during the transition, so check its date and ask when needed. That is what the derived row feature above is for: type the department's 0–120 number, get the band it implies, and compare it directly against the central floor you already have.

A department may also waive the test entirely if you studied in English. The triggers and the paperwork are set out in the guide to TOEFL and IELTS waivers for grad school, and it is worth checking before you pay for a retake.

What happens if you are half a band short of a TOEFL requirement for masters or PhD entry?

The amber rows are not automatic rejections. Four routes appear in the policies checked for this page, and they differ in how much they cost you.

1. A second admission tier. Illinois admits below its full-status band on “limited status” at band 4.0 and requires the English as a Second Language Placement Test before enrolment, with placement-based coursework after it. You are a real admitted student from day one.
2. Provisional entry with an on-arrival placement test. Wisconsin–Madison may admit at band 4.5 rather than 5.0 with programme approval, subject to the ESLAT assessment on arrival and any recommended ESL course completed in the first semester. The University of Washington's structure is similar: its minimum band 4.0 makes you admissible, its recommended band 4.5 is what satisfies the requirement without conditions, and below the recommended level you take one or two Academic English Program courses.
3. An assessment gate rather than an admission gate. Cornell's Tier B admits you and defers the language question to an on-campus English Language Assessment, which is what stands between you and teaching. Nothing about your admission is conditional; your funding route may be.
4. A conditional or pathway offer. Some universities issue an offer contingent on a language result or a pre-sessional course. Read what a conditional offer actually commits you to before you accept one, because the conditions are enforceable and the deadlines are short.

If your shortfall is on the overall band rather than a section floor, work out which single section is cheapest to move. Half a band on one section shifts the average by 0.125, which is often not enough to change the rounded overall band on its own. Our TOEFL score calculator lets you test section combinations before you book a retake, and what TOEFL score you need covers the undergraduate and general-admission side of the same question.

How do I verify my own programme's TOEFL requirement in five minutes?

1. Search the institution's own domain before relying on a third-party aggregator: put the programme name and the phrase english language proficiency together with the university's website, then prioritize results on that university's domain.
2. Look for a January 2026 date on the page. A page that lists a single 0–120 number with no reference to the band scale may still be using the previous format, so check its date and ask.
3. Check whether the number you found is the graduate school floor or the department's. If the URL sits under a central graduate studies section, it is the floor, and the department may ask for more.
4. Look separately for section minimums and for a Speaking figure tied to assistantships. These are frequently on a different page from the overall requirement.
5. Add the figure to the matrix above using the derived-row form, so it sits next to everything else you are comparing.
6. If anything is ambiguous, email admissions. During a scale transition a short, specific question gets a straight answer; a general one gets a link back to the page you already read.

Subject: TOEFL requirement on the 1-6 scale for [[Programme name]], [[Term and year]] entry

Dear Graduate Admissions,

I am applying to [[Programme name]] for [[Term and year]] entry and I want to
confirm the English language requirement for a TOEFL iBT taken after
21 January 2026, when the score scale changed to 1-6 bands.

Your page at [[URL you actually read]] states [[quote the exact figure, e.g.
"a minimum TOEFL score of 100"]]. Could you confirm three things:

1. The overall band required for this programme on the 1-6 scale.
2. Any minimum band required in individual sections, and whether a different
   Speaking band applies to applicants who want to be considered for a
   teaching assistantship.
3. Whether MyBest scores are accepted, or whether all section scores must
   come from a single test date.

I also want to check whether the figure on that page is the Graduate School
minimum or the departmental requirement, in case the department sets a
higher one.

Thank you,
[[Your name]]
[[Application ID, if you already have one]]

Rewrite this in your own words before sending. Quoting the exact page you read and the exact figure it gave is the part that gets a precise reply, because it tells the office which of their pages is out of date.

How was each row in this matrix sourced?

Each built-in row was checked directly against the institution's own graduate admissions or English language requirement page on 8 September 2026, and each built-in row carries a link to that page. The built-in matrix does not use an aggregator, a ranking table or a forum post. Where an institution publishes several requirement tiers, each tier is a separate row, because a student comparing programmes is comparing tiers, not universities.

Rows sort alphabetically by default and there is no ordering on this page that could be read as a ranking. If you want a neutral, published way to group US institutions by type rather than by prestige, the American Council on Education's Carnegie Classifications, whose 2025 edition is the current one, describe institutional type and research activity without ranking anything. Accreditation is a separate question and a check worth doing before you apply anywhere unfamiliar: the US Department of Education's Database of Accredited Postsecondary Institutions and Programs lets you look up any US institution and see which accreditor recognises it.

CampusBreeze makes free study tools and guides. If a figure here no longer matches the school's page, the school's page is right and this one is wrong. The comparison is only as current as its last check, which is why the checked date is printed on each built-in row rather than only at the top of the page.

What is deliberately not here

• No rankings, and no institutions listed because they are prestigious. Coverage reflects which graduate admissions pages were readable and unambiguous on the day of checking.
• No guesses. Where a page does not state whether MyBest is accepted, the row says “not stated” rather than inferring an answer.
• No claim that this list is complete. It is twenty verified requirement tiers, not a census. Use the derived-row form for the programmes you actually care about.

Converting a transcript is a separate problem with the same structure, and the same warning applies to it: see the GPA converter for why only the receiving institution's own evaluation counts.

Common questions about TOEFL band requirements for graduate admission

Sources

Institution-specific figures in the built-in rows were checked at the links below on 8 September 2026. ETS supplies the score-scale concordance and transition details.

• ETS, TOEFL iBT Score Scale Update: A Guide for Institutions — the 1 to 6 scale and its 21 January 2026 launch, the full band to 0–30 and 0–120 concordance, the CEFR alignment, the rounding rule with the 5.125 and 5.25 examples, the 100 to 5.0 / 90 to 4.5 / 80 to 4.0 guidance, the warning about setting 5.5, and the two-year transition reporting through January 2028.
• ETS, Understand your TOEFL iBT scores — the 2-year score validity, what appears on a score report, how the MyBest section converts older 0–120 results to bands, and the statement that each institution decides whether to accept MyBest.
• Cornell University Graduate School, English language proficiency requirement — the interim Tier A, Tier B and professional master's section bands, the absence of an overall minimum, and the MyBest position.
• Delft University of Technology, MSc admission requirements — band 5 overall with 4.5 in every section from 21 January 2026, and the previous 100 with 22 in every section.
• King's College London, English language requirements — the Band B, C and D figures on both scales and the refusal of MyBest and IELTS One Skill Retake.
• University College London, English language requirements for graduate study — Levels 1 to 5 on both scales, including the Speaking 6.0 component at Level 5.
• University of British Columbia, Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies English proficiency requirements — 4.5 overall with Listening 5, Reading and Writing 4.5 and Speaking 4, and the exclusion of MyBest composite scores.
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Graduate College, English proficiency requirements — limited status 4.0 and full status 5.0 with their 79 and 103 predecessors, the Speaking 5.0 teaching assistantship floor, the ESL Placement Test rule and the refusal of MyBest.
• University of Washington Graduate School, Policy 3.2 on English language proficiency — the 4.0 minimum and 4.5 recommended bands, the Academic English Program condition, the statement that no conditional admission is offered below the minimum, and the MyBest change in the revised policy effective for Winter 2027 enrolment.
• University of Wisconsin–Madison Graduate School, admission requirements — the 5.0 minimum, the 4.5 tier requiring programme approval and an ESLAT on arrival, and the statement that scores compiled from multiple tests are not accepted.
• American Council on Education, Carnegie Classifications — the 2025 edition, cited as a neutral way to group US institutions by type rather than by rank.
• US Department of Education, Database of Accredited Postsecondary Institutions and Programs — the official lookup for whether a US institution is accredited and by which accreditor.