TOEFL Score Requirements for Ivy League Universities 2026: All 8 Schools, Per-Program Cutoffs, and Section Minimums

Every Ivy League university accepts the TOEFL iBT for international applicants and publishes a minimum score, but the minimums vary by school, by program within each school, and by undergraduate vs graduate. The published number is also rarely what the admitted cohort actually scores — Ivy League international students typically report TOEFL scores 8 to 10 points above the floor because the admissions pool is competitive. This guide covers each of the 8 Ivy League schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Dartmouth, and Cornell) with the published 2026 TOEFL iBT minimums, the section requirements where applicable, the IELTS and 1-6 band equivalents, and what the admitted-student cohort actually scores. All numbers are drawn from each school's published 2026 admissions pages and apply unless an individual program publishes a stricter cutoff.

1. Ivy League TOEFL minimums at a glance (all 8 schools)

The fastest way to use this guide: find your school in the table below, then jump to its section for the program-by-program breakdown. The published minimum is the floor for whether your application is reviewed at all. The competitive score is what you actually need to be in serious contention for admission.

Three patterns are worth noting before drilling into each school. First, the undergraduate "no hard minimum" pattern is universal across the Ivy League — none of the eight schools publish a hard TOEFL floor for undergraduate admission, but admitted-student data shows the de facto floor is around 105. Second, graduate programs cluster tightly at 100+ as the published minimum, with Wharton MBA, Harvard Business School, Columbia SIPA, and Columbia Journalism as the outliers asking 109-114+. Third, section minimums are rare across the Ivy League — Cornell and Princeton are the only two schools that consistently publish section-level requirements, and Princeton's are tied to teaching-assistant eligibility rather than admission.

2. Harvard University TOEFL minimum

Harvard's TOEFL requirements vary across its 12 schools. Harvard College (undergraduate) does not publish a hard TOEFL minimum on its international student page, but the admitted-student data shows international students typically score 110+ on the iBT. Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) asks for a minimum of 80 on the iBT with a strong recommendation of 100+. Harvard Business School publishes a TOEFL iBT recommendation of 109+ for the MBA. Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School require 100+ for most international applicants, with Law School additionally requiring section minimums of 25+ in each section for the JD program.

The practical rule for Harvard: target 105+ overall if you are competitive on every other dimension, and 110+ if any other part of your application is below the typical admitted-student profile. Harvard's TOEFL waiver applies to applicants from English-medium undergraduate institutions or those whose native language is English; everyone else needs the test.

3. Yale University TOEFL minimum

Yale University requires TOEFL iBT 100+ for graduate admission across most departments. Yale College (undergraduate) does not publish a hard minimum but admitted international students typically score 105-115. Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences asks 100+ overall and lists section-level preferences for departments that involve significant teaching, similar to Princeton's TA-eligibility framing.

Yale's professional schools sit at the higher end of the Ivy range. Yale School of Management (the SOM MBA) requires 100+ for the MBA, with an admitted-student average around 110-113. Yale Law School expects 100+ for both the JD and LLM, and Yale Divinity School and Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies both publish 100+ with no section minimums.

4. Princeton University TOEFL minimum

Princeton University publishes a TOEFL iBT requirement of 100+ for graduate admission across the Graduate School. Princeton's undergraduate admissions office does not publish a hard minimum; the admitted-international-student data shows 108-115 as the typical range. Princeton's distinguishing feature is the teaching-assistant section minimum: graduate students in programs where TAs are required must score 28+ in Speaking and 28+ in Listening to be eligible to teach in their first year. Students below this section threshold can still be admitted but must complete an English-for-academic-purposes program before being assigned TA duties.

For non-TA programs at Princeton — primarily Master's programs in Engineering and Architecture and the MFin in finance — the 100+ overall minimum applies without section thresholds. The practical implication: if you are applying to a PhD program at Princeton in any STEM field, plan to score 28+ in Speaking and Listening even though the 100 overall is technically sufficient, because TA assignments are part of the funding structure for most PhD students.

5. Columbia University TOEFL minimum

Columbia University has the highest published TOEFL minimums across the Ivy League for specific programs. Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and Columbia Journalism School both require 114+ on the iBT, the highest published Ivy League minimum. Columbia Business School and Columbia Law School both require 105+. Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and most engineering programs publish 100+ as the standard graduate minimum.

Columbia College (undergraduate) does not publish a hard minimum but admitted international students average 109-114. The Columbia School of General Studies, which admits non-traditional undergraduates, asks for 100+ as a guideline. The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science requires 100+ for both undergraduate and graduate engineering programs.

The practical pattern for Columbia: the standard graduate Ivy floor (100) applies to most departments, but the prestige professional programs (SIPA, Journalism) require significantly higher scores reflecting the speaking-and-writing-intensive nature of those degrees.

6. University of Pennsylvania (Penn) TOEFL minimum

University of Pennsylvania requires TOEFL iBT 100+ for graduate admissions across most schools. Wharton's MBA program does not publish a hard TOEFL minimum but the admitted-student average is around 110-113. Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science requires 100+ for both undergraduate and graduate programs. Penn's School of Arts and Sciences (graduate) requires 100+ with section recommendations of 23+ in each of Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing.

Penn does not publish a hard undergraduate TOEFL minimum on its admissions page, but admitted international undergraduates typically score 105+. Penn's law school (the Carey Law School) requires 100+ for the JD and LLM programs, and the Perelman School of Medicine requires 100+ for the MD program with section minimums similar to Harvard Medical School's.

7. Brown University TOEFL minimum

Brown University requires TOEFL iBT 100+ for graduate admissions and recommends 105+ for undergraduate (no hard minimum published). Brown's Graduate School publishes the 100+ minimum across departments with no universal section-level requirements. The exception is Brown's Alpert Medical School, which requires 100+ overall with section minimums for the MD program.

Brown's undergraduate admissions office is more flexible on the TOEFL than most Ivy peers — applicants who attended an English-medium high school for the past 4 years may be exempt from the TOEFL requirement even if English is not their first language. This is a useful exemption for international applicants who attended IB or American-curriculum high schools abroad. Verify the exemption pathway with Brown admissions before skipping the test.

8. Dartmouth College TOEFL minimum

Dartmouth College asks for TOEFL iBT 100+ across most graduate schools including the Tuck School of Business (MBA) and the Geisel School of Medicine. Dartmouth's undergraduate admissions office recommends 105+ but does not publish a hard minimum. Tuck's MBA program publishes 109+ as a guideline for international applicants and the admitted-student average sits around 110-113.

Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering and the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies both require 100+ overall, with Thayer also recommending 25+ in Speaking specifically given the project-based nature of the engineering curriculum. Dartmouth's smaller size relative to other Ivy League schools means fewer programs but tighter cohorts, and the TOEFL bar tends to land at the higher end of the published recommendation in practice.

9. Cornell University TOEFL minimum

Cornell University requires TOEFL iBT 100+ for most graduate programs with section minimums of 22+ in each of Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing for many departments. This is the most consistently-published section-minimum policy across the Ivy League. Cornell's Graduate School publishes both the overall and the section minimums on its admissions page; applicants below the section threshold in any one section are not considered, regardless of their overall score.

Cornell undergraduate has no published TOEFL minimum but admitted international students average around 110. Cornell's professional schools — the SC Johnson Graduate School of Management (MBA), Cornell Law School, the Weill Cornell Medical College — all require 100+ overall with section minimums equivalent to or stricter than the Graduate School's. Cornell SC Johnson's MBA recommendation is 105+ and the admitted-student average sits around 111.

The practical implication for Cornell: do not treat the overall 100 as the only number that matters. The 22+ in each section is a hard floor — a score of 105 overall but with a 21 in Speaking would not be accepted. Plan prep around the section minimum, not just the overall total.

10. The published minimum vs the competitive score

Every section above mentions both the published minimum and the competitive score range. The gap between them — typically 8 to 10 points — exists because Ivy League admissions are holistic and competitive, not gated by the TOEFL. An applicant at the minimum signals "barely acceptable English proficiency for this pool" while the rest of the application is being compared against candidates with 110+ scores.

Three things determine whether you need the minimum or the competitive score:

• Strength of the rest of your application. Strong GPA, strong recs, strong essays, and meaningful work or research experience can compensate for a TOEFL at the minimum. A weaker application profile means you need the higher TOEFL to compensate.
• Program type. Speaking-and-writing-intensive programs (SIPA, Journalism, Law, MBA) weight the TOEFL more heavily than research-heavy STEM PhDs. Aim for the competitive range, not the minimum, for the professional programs.
• First-language English of your country. Applicants from countries where English is the medium of instruction (India, Singapore, Nigeria, Philippines) are sometimes evaluated more leniently on TOEFL because the test is seen as a proxy for academic-English exposure, which is assumed. Applicants from non-English-medium countries should aim higher.

The pragmatic target: aim for the higher end of the competitive range (110+ for most Ivy programs, 114+ for the Columbia SIPA / Journalism tier). A score above the competitive range does not earn you bonus points but it removes the TOEFL as a possible weakness in the application review.

11. Section minimums and what they mean for prep

Cornell, Princeton (for TA eligibility), and Harvard Law are the Ivy League schools that publish hard section minimums. The other five schools focus on overall scores and look at sections only as part of holistic review. If you are applying to Cornell, Princeton (in a TA-funded PhD), or Harvard Law, your prep plan must protect the weakest section — a strong overall score with one weak section is worse than a slightly lower overall score with balanced sections.

For the universal preparation playbook that applies to any Ivy League target, take a free full-length TOEFL mock test first to set your baseline, then drill the weakest section using the TOEFL mock test guide and the section-specific strategy pages. The full directory of university-by-university TOEFL requirements is in our TOEFL score requirements by university index.

12. FAQ

The Ivy League TOEFL bar is consistent: target the overall 100 minimum if applying to the easier graduate programs (most STEM PhDs, most engineering), target 105+ for undergraduate admissions and standard professional programs, and target 110+ for the prestige professional tier (HBS, Wharton, SIPA, Journalism, Columbia Law). Then run section-mock practice on whichever section is weakest, especially if you are applying to Cornell or a TA-funded Princeton PhD where the section floor of 22 (Cornell) or 28 (Princeton TA) is enforced as a hard gate. Take a free full-length mock test to set your baseline before the real exam.