Michael Goodine's Blog, page 21

More on ETS and the NAEP

Some troubling news via the Hechinger Report for the brave few readers still following the story of ETS and its involvement in the NAEP.  Jill Barshay reports that: “The contractor building this platform, ETS, gave DOGE a demonstration of its features last week. But according to former education officials, DOGE staffers are seeking additional places […]

PTE Accepted for Alberta Advantage Program

The PTE Core Test can now be used to meet the language use requirement of the Alberta Advantage Immigration Program.  Applicants may now submit scores from the IELTS (General), CELPIP, PTE Core, and a couple of French tests. That’s pretty cool.  Longtime readers know that I get pretty excited about competitive marketplaces and the extinguishing […]

GRE’s Online Service Fee

Around February of this year the Educational Testing Service started adding a 4% “online service fee” to GRE registrations (and other transactions). It appears at checkout. I believe a similar fee was added to Praxis registrations last year. It has not yet been added to TOEFL registrations.  But let me know if you spot it […]

University of Edinburgh to Stop Accepting PTE Scores

It is worth mentioning here that the University of Edinburgh will stop accepting scores from the PTE for entry from 2026 onwards. I think this was announced in early March.  You can read about it on their page. The university stopped accepting scores from the at-home version of the PTE in late 2023 due to […]

Who Takes What: Canadian Colleges

This week I looked at what tests are accepted at the twenty Canadian colleges that received the most study permit approvals in 2023. Obviously these guys took a big hit in 2024, but they are still bringing in huge numbers of students. More than most of the major Canadian universities. They remain very important to […]

Old TOEFL Envelopes

More standardized testing ephemera! I spotted these in the collection of a stamp and postcard dealer. They are envelopes used to mail in TOEFL registration forms and fees from Kenya (1977) and Hungary (1992). The reverse of each contains instructions for the sender.  

IELTS is Massive in Vietnam

Here’s a mildly interesting story from Vietnam that illustrates why that market is so critical to test makers. As I’ve mentioned in the past, tests like the IELTS are used for admission to domestic universities – so volumes are high. A testing company that can take a test designed for one purpose (study abroad) and […]

Use of English Tests for Undergraduate Admission in the USA

I also examined which English tests are accepted for admission to undergraduate programs at the 20 universities in the USA with the most international students at any level of study (per Open Doors).  I’ve also tracked what tests they accepted in 2022 and 2019. To make the list more interesting, I’ve only listed one school […]

TOEFL Access

ETS has launched a new product called “TOEFL Access.” This is meant to be a replacement for the ETS Data Manager which many score users currently use to receive and access TOEFL scores. There will be two versions of TOEFL Access – a free version and a paid version. According to ETS’s announcement of this […]

Use of English Tests for Undergraduate Admissions in Canada

I spent some time researching which English tests are accepted for undergraduate admissions in Canada, based on the websites of those schools.  The results of my research are strikingly uninteresting. I selected the 15 largest universities (by total enrollment) and identified which English tests they accept today, which tests they accepted in 2022, and which […]