Including the last few stragglers, 16 international students at Columbia University reached out to me for help with the ALP Essay Exam (need help? Contact me!) for this year’s fall term. As always, I asked them what tests they used to get admitted to the school in the first place. The results were:
- Duolingo English Test – 15
- TOEFL – 1
- IELTS – 0
When I ask questions like “what went wrong with TOEFL?” I am sometimes accused of being too harsh. But clearly something has changed. Pre-pandemic, there is a good chance that every one of those students would have taken the TOEFL.
Individuals who don’t talk to test takers every day and who don’t teach this stuff one-on-one can miss trends in the industry that ought to be obvious to everyone. Speaking of what went wrong at the legacy testing firms… that might have something to do with it. There may be too many degrees of separation between executives and customers.
Anyway. Of course I asked why they all took the DET. Most mentioned the price and convenience. One mentioned that the cute characters put her at ease. Another said that the university told him to take the DET.
A few poor souls might sit for the placement test in August. I’ll update this post if I talk to any of them.