The South China Morning Post reports that residents of mainland China will no longer be permitted to take the paper-based IELTS in Hong Kong unless they can prove that they are legal residents of the city.  This mirrors recent IELTS policy changes in countries around the world which have also barred non-residents from accessing the paper-based test.

Interestingly, a British Council representative linked this change to fraud prevention. They are quoted as saying that “the analysis by the IELTS partners shows that there is a link between non-resident access to IELTS on paper and fraudulent test-day activity.”

And also that “By limiting the access to residents, much of this risk will be mitigated.”

They also noted that the change would “enhance the security of the test and… protect IELTS customers from becoming victims of fraud.”

This is the first time I’ve seen an IELTS official explicitly link the new policy to fraud prevention efforts. Unstated is what sort of fraudulent activity is occurring at administrations of the paper-based IELTS. The British Council’s most recent fraud report cited only 22 instances of exam misconduct across all administrations (paper and computer) worldwide in 2022/23.

Some of the supplementary TOEFL fees have been hiked. It now costs $29 to send a score report to each recipient beyond the four that are selected before test day. That’s an increase of $4 per recipient.

Express registration (seven days or less before the test) now costs $49. That’s a $9 increase.

I don’t know when these increases were implemented, but it must have been quite recently, as they are only viewable within the user account. The TOEFL website still lists the old prices.

Since the website lists incorrect information I am unsure if other supplementary fees (score review, reinstatement of cancelled scores, returned payments, etc) have also been increased.

Update:  A reader mentioned that the cost of rescheduling a test has increased by $9 (to $69).  I can’t confirm this myself since I don’t have any tests to reschedule…

Near the end of 2024 I linked to an article in the Free Press Journal which indicated that 90% of TOEFL takers send their scores to American universities.  Many readers assumed that the quoted number represented Indian test takers only, so I assembled the League of TOEFL Experts to see what people in a few other key markets do with their scores.

Han Joon Lee, a highly in-demand tutor based in Korea told me that 98% of his TOEFL students use their scores to apply to American schools.  He said that the percentage is higher than ever since domestic universities in Korea generally don’t use TOEFL scores nowadays.

Next, I reached out to Martin Chan (the one and only) who teaches for one of the big prep companies in China.  He indicated that 90-95% of his TOEFL students plan to head to the USA (including some headed to high schools).  According to him, the remaining 5-10 percent “use the TOEFL to apply to Japan, or very occasionally other countries.”

Finally, I asked Mahsa Shams Yousefi about the situation in Iran.  She told me that “almost 90%” of her TOEFL students want to head to the US.  Despite everything, the USA remains a popular destination for many young Iranian folks.  Interestingly, she noted that “sometimes they just take the TOEFL test (rather than IELTS) because they  mistakenly think American universities JUST accept TOEFL… [and] they believe the embassy officers prefer TOEFL scores.”

So there ya have it.

If you check Google’s “Ad Transparency” database and Meta’s “Ad Library” you’ll learn that ETS recently launched a big ad campaign promoting the usefulness of the test for people hoping to study in destinations outside of the United States.  That was probably a smart move.

Some test-obsessed readers may be interested to know that College Board’s most recent 990 form is now available via Propublica. It covers the year ending December 2023. According to the form, program revenues were up about 47 million dollars on the year to reach a total of 955 million dollars. Net assets hit a record 1.7 billion dollars.

Revenue from the SAT dropped slightly to 281 million dollars. In the final pre-pandemic year that stood at 403 million dollars.

ETS was paid just over 300 million dollars for its services to College Board.

It is off-topic in these parts, but I saw that the former ACT, Inc. is now “IntermediaryEd” and that it has sold its campus in Iowa.  The organization now describes itself as “no longer an assessment company.” The new website notes that the leadership team is currently “working to define its new direction.”

They do have a lot of money: around $246 million in net assets (per 2024 IRS filings) plus whatever additional monies they got for selling the campus and ACT Test.

(Update: Just in case you missed the news, last year the ACT Test was sold by its non-profit parent company to private equity. It still exists, under its new ownership.)

Surprisingly, Pearson Languages is now selling an updated 4th edition of the “Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL iBT Test.” This is the first update in 11 years.  I did not expect to see an update to this old book out of the blue.

As far as I can tell, the new edition is only available as a 12-month ebook subscription direct from the Pearson site. There is an Amazon listing for a physical paperback, but I don’t believe such a publication actually exists right now.

Here’s a deep dive into the situation at ApplyBoard that just appeared in OPM Wire.   It’s a fascinating read. According to data from Fidelity, the Canadian student recruitment firm’s valuation has collapsed 74% from its 2021 high of $3.2 billion USD.

One theme of the article seems to be that ApplyBoard is a tech company without any tech.  I don’t know if that’s true, but it is worth exploring.  In any case, when the book is written about what the heck went wrong with student recruitment in Canada, Applyboard will probably have a chapter all to itself.

The author throws some shade at the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan who led Applyboard’s Series D funding at about that time.  Said funding came shortly after a Series C Extension, which the Educational Testing Service (ETS) participated in through its private investment fund.  For a few years that participation seemed like a big success story for ETS. 

Actually, the linking up of ETS and ApplyBoard was much discussed at that time, but it doesn’t seem like anything ever came of it.  Discounted TOEFL test vouchers were available in the ApplyBoard online shop for a while, but they’ve been listed as “sold out” for some time.  The vouchers were actually a really good deal.  I think they still have PTE and DET vouchers available, if you need to save a few bucks.

I was hired (on a freelance basis) to write a bunch of blog posts for ApplyBoard about four years ago.  A few weeks into that project, the ApplyBoard employees working on it were unexpectedly laid off and their email accounts were deactivated. Thankfully, one departing team member was kind enough to wire me my fee just a few hours before packing up their desk.  Some of my material randomly appeared on an ApplyBoard blog a few years later but most of it has never seen the light of day.

Mildly interesting news, folks! This Thursday, the official IELTS Facebook and Instagram pages will be shuttered. All content will instead come from pages operated by each of the IELTS partners.

Here are the current follower counts of said pages:

  • IELTS Official Facebook: 5.5 million followers
  • IELTS IDP Facebook: 2.6 million followers
  • IELTS BC Facebook: 532 thousand followers

 

  • IELTS Official Instagram: 115 thousand followers
  • IELTS IDP Instagram: 135 thousand followers
  • IELTS BC Instagram: 339 thousand followers

 

The official IELTS LinkedIn account will remain active, I guess.

(source)

Express scoring for the TOEFL is available again.  Test takers who pay a fee of $149 will receive their scores within 24 hours of taking the test.  Otherwise, scores are reported in 4-8 days. This option first appeared near the end of 2024, but was quickly withdrawn. At that time the fee was $99.

Interestingly, this option only appears when the test is to be taken at a test center. I don’t see it when attempting to book an at-home test.

Having this option is better than not having it.  But note that IELTS scores are now delivered in 1-2 days without an extra fee and that Pearson promises to deliver PTE scores in 2 days without asking for any additional payment either.

There is a wonderful new article in Language Testing Journal by Emma Bruce, Karen Dunn and Tony Clark which explores test score validity periods for high-stakes tests.  It isn’t in open access, though, so you’ll need institutional access or a healthy billfold to read it.

As most readers know, institutions and regulatory bodies generally won’t accept scores from tests taken more than two years ago.  This is based on research and advice from test makers, though the authors note that:

“While the role of test providers and language testing researchers is not to set the policy for test score use, it is becoming apparent that the messaging surrounding validity periods may benefit from consideration through a contemporary lens. While it is certain that test developers have a responsibility to communicate the idea that the fidelity of a test score in reflecting test-takers’ language proficiency may change over time depending on the circumstances of the test-taker in the period between taking the test and using the score, it is of equal import to communicate–especially to policymakers–the possibility of adapting the 2-year requirement according to risk or need in any given setting.”

Unmentioned is the fact that even if institutions desire to accept scores that are older than two years, it can be exceptionally difficult to actually receive those scores.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that none of the big four tests (TOEFL, IELTS, PTE and DET) allow test takers to send scores to recipients more than two years after a test date. In this way, it seems like the test makers are semi-enforcing a two-year validity period. I can’t even view the scores from my 2022 attempt at the TOEFL within my account on the ETS website.

I caught a bit of flak in my earlier post for failing to mention, in my post about the scrubbing of references to DEI from the ETS website, that ETS has contracts with the Department of Education that last year paid them about $67 million dollars. That equaled about 5% of their overall operating revenues.  Those revenues, one imagines, were a consideration when that decision was made.  As we all know, the new American president and his team don’t like DEI.  I should have mentioned that. Mea culpa.

But the ETS team may have jumped the gun. President Trump has begun efforts to wind down the Department of Education, so those revenues might be impacted in any case.

I’ll end with a bit of editorializing.  Here you go:

It seems to me that organizations which spend the next four years laying low in an effort to avoid being noticed run the risk of losing their seat at the table in the post-Trump world.  The leadership team at ETS has often mentioned their dream of “rebuilding the pillars of education” together with the Carnegie Institute.  Opportunities to do that sort of work may end up falling on other shoulders.  So to speak.