TOEFL score requirements by university

Understanding TOEFL university requirements

A university's published TOEFL minimum is a floor, not a target. The minimum is the score below which an application is not considered; competitive applicants typically score 5 to 15 points above it. For top-15 schools in any country, that means most admitted international students score above 100, regardless of the listed minimum.

Sub-section minimums matter as much as the overall score. Many universities reject applications that hit the overall minimum but fall below the threshold on a single section — usually Speaking or Writing. If you're aiming for a school like Cornell (overall 100, Writing 22, Speaking 22), a Speaking score of 19 will block your application even with a 100 overall.

The TOEFL 2026 redesign changed scoring from the legacy 0-120 scale to a 1.0-6.0 band scale aligned to CEFR levels. Universities are gradually updating their requirements; in 2026, most still publish 0-120 minimums. Either format is currently valid for admissions until the institution explicitly publishes a band-scale minimum. See the full 1-6 band scoring guide for the conversion table.

Where these numbers come from

Every TOEFL minimum on this directory is sourced from the publicly-stated institutional admissions page at the date of last verification. We don't aggregate user-submitted data, we don't crowd-source numbers, and we don't include any university whose published minimum we couldn't independently verify. When a university updates its minimum, the page on this directory is updated with a new verification date. See our editorial standards for the full sourcing and update policy.