I’ve listed English as my First Language on both the common-app and coalition app, but attend an English-medium International school in a non-English-speaking country.
Here is an excerpt from UIUC: “If your first language isn’t English or you’re attending high school in a non-English-speaking country, you should report your highest TOEFL score”
Although I am attending a high school in a non-English-speaking country since it says OR and my first language is English I do not need to report my highest TOEFL score (officially paying, through TOEFL website) correct?
It just kind of seems that ‘stating’ English is my native language is (it actually is) not enough and I need to show some sort of official proof?
If the answer is: “It doesn’t hurt” aka its okay not to send it. I won’t send it because that’s unnecessary costs.
On a separate note, UCSD says
“If your native language is not English, and your high school or college/university education was in a country where the language of instruction was not English you must provide evidence of English proficiency”
Technically I go to an international private school, so although the language of instruction of my country is non-English (for public school) my international school is English-medium.
As I said, I’m a native English speaker, but here UCSD says AND so I’m a bit confused here
Would I need to send TOEFL to UCSD??
I did self-report TOEFL (got 113/120), but once again I’m assuming they’re asking for an official report.
UCSB says “Applicants whose native language is not English, and whose high school, college or university education was in a country where the language of instruction was not English must provide evidence of English proficiency”
That means I don’t need to send TOEFL since I’m a native speaker first of all. Regardless of whether I live in a non-English country because it says “and” UCSB is saying you need to be non-native AND in a non-English-speaking country to be required to take the TOEFL.
Separately speaking:
If it had said “Applicants whose native language is not English, OR whose high school, college or university education was in a country where the language of instruction was not English must provide evidence of English proficiency”
Would that have meant I would need to send the TOEFL? (I’m asking because other American universities use the word “OR”)
I just need to be really sure about this use of language. Better safe than sorry.
My apologies for bothering you so much, thank you!
If your native language is not English and you attend school in a country where your classes are not taught in English, then you would need to send the TOEFL.
Since your native language is English and your classes are taught in English, you do not required to send the TOEFL. If you have taken the TOEFL for any reason, there is no downside to send it.
The college placement team at your private English-medium school should be able to advise you about this. Talk with them. Are their graduates normally required to provide evidence of English proficiency, or is that normally waived?
I would be inclined to ask admissions at the schools that you are applying to.
To me the UIUC text seems to suggest that you should send your TOEFL score since you are in a non-English speaking country.
Does it cost much to send an official TOEFL result? Your 113 should be well past high enough to remove English proficiency from anything that they would even think about.
In the end, its unnecessary money for my family if I don’t need to send it.
I have it self-reported, but I guess that doesn’t matter…
I’ll talk to admissions and my college-counselor about this.
If you are saying UIUC is suggesting I send my score because of the word “OR” you definitely agree that UCSD is not asking me to send my score because they say “AND”, right?
UCSD: “If your native language is not English, AND your high school or college/university education was in a country where the language of instruction was not English you must provide evidence of English proficiency”
Nevermind. They say on your website you can self-report your test scores (which I already did for TOEFL regardless if I needed to because there’s no cost to that). So apologies for the confusion…
However, do you mind confirming your interpretation of what UCSD is saying please?
UCSD is not asking me to send my score because they say “AND”, right?
UCSD: “If your native language is not English, AND your high school or college/university education was in a country where the language of instruction was not English you must provide evidence of English proficiency”
@baduzza: It is always better to confirm with the source (UCSD admissions) if there are any questions.
To the best of my knowledge for UC admissions, you do not have to submit the TOEFL but each campus is an independent entity so I would just call Monday to confirm.
I know it is the weekend, and you are really worried about this, but one quick email to the admissions offices would clarify things for you. So send it now, and they will read and respond - possibly soon after they open up on Monday morning.
I agree that the “and” in UCSD’s explanation should mean that OP need not submit a TOEFL score since OP is a native speaker. The “or” in UIUC’s language suggested the opposite. I also agree it is wisest to check - you can’t always rely on the grammatical precision of the people writing the explanation. In our case, our son, who is a native speaker AND attended international schools where the primary language of instruction is English did not submit a TOEFL score to any of the schools he applied to (it would have been a dealbreaker!).
UIUC: I would email if they were asking me to send OFFICIAL TOEFL, but they’re fine with SELF-REPORTED TOEFL (which I already did when I submitted to UIUC regardless), so no need to send them an email, right?
@gumbymom As for UC schools, I had already sent them an email about SAT official score reports… based on all your responses I’m pretty confident that UCs don’t need OFFICIAL TOEFL and instead my SELF-REPORTED TOEFL will suffice, so no worries there, right?
*All UC sites I checked use the exact same sentence regarding TOEFL and SAT scores, hence they seem to have the same policies
Thank you all for your help. If there’s anything urgent I should know, please let me know.