Admission & Student Services Training

Automatic Waivers

Some applicants who are not native English speakers may meet the requirements for an automatic test waiver. Click here to learn more about the Graduate School automatic waiver criteria.

Note: Academic programs may require English proficiency exams, even if an applicant meets the automatic wavier requirements.

Special Cases

Waiver of minimum subsection score: On occasion, academic programs may feel that applicants who meet the minimum TOEFL requirement of 80 but have a subsection score below 17 deserves consideration. Programs may request a waiver for such cases by justifying or explaining why this score will not impede the progress or success of the student in that program; special consideration should be given to speaking and listening scores if programs anticipate the student will be funded through a teaching assistantship. Instructions for submitting a waiver request are described below.

Waiver of language testing: Sometimes a program may feel that an applicant, who otherwise does not meet the requirements for an automatic waiver, should not be required to submit an English proficiency exam score. For example, the student has lived in the United States for the last year or worked as a teaching assistant at another university in an English-speaking country. In these instances, the program should prepare a request, stating the compelling reasons why the academic program believes the applicant’s English language ability is adequate and how the academic program ascertained that the applicant’s level of English language ability (e.g. interview, publications in English, etc.).

Waiver Request Instructions: Waiver requests should be addressed to the Dean of the Graduate School but sent to the appropriate Graduate Admission Advisor. The requests will be presented to the Dean of the Graduate School, who will make the final decision as to whether the waiver will be granted. If the waiver request is not approved, then the applicant will be required to take (or retake) one of the acceptable exams and submit their qualifying score to the Graduate Admissions Office prior to their admission.