Carnegie Mellon TOEFL Requirement for Chinese Canadian

Colleges and Universities A-Z Carnegie Mellon University
1

I’ve been in Canada for more than 10 years with complete fluency in English, with a 170 Verbal score on the GRE. I find it surprising and entirely discriminatory that CMU requires that everyone whose native English is not English to write the TOEFL regardless of English proficiency and citizenship (https://www.ece.cmu.edu/admissions/graduate-faq.html). What if I just apply without TOEFL? Will they reject my application simply because my name is not “white”?

2

From the website:

I would assume that the same would apply for applicants with a Canadian degree outside of QC (unless an English language university like McGill). However the one to direct your questions to works at CMU, so call them. But you might want to dial back your indignation before doing so.

3

Are you a Canadian citizen?

4

I am not sure if this will make you feel any better. I am a native English speaker with an English/Irish/Canadian name who attended an English language high school, but in the province of Quebec. This was before the TOEFL existed, but a well know American university did require that I go into downtown Montreal and chat (in English) with an alumni to show that I could speak English well enough to attend university in the US. It is a good thing that the chat was in English, because it is the only language that I could ever speak well enough to attend university in that language (I could have chatted pleasantly in French, but I could not have attended a French language university).

The world is full of silly requirements. Taking the TOEFL seems low on the list of silly things that someone is going to ask of you.

Is your bachelor’s degree from a university that teaches in English? By the time that I was applying to graduate school, having a degree from a US university did seem to be sufficient proof of my proficiency in English.

How will CMU know that English is not your native language or one of your native languages? I have known people who had two different native languages, both of which they had learned to speak starting approximately at birth.

5

I would imagine this is a requirement that can be waived. Do people from England, Australia, or Canada need to provide a TOEFL score?

Call and ask if it can be waived or if you can substitute the GRE score as proof?