A survey by CollegePulse of 855 students in the USA was shared on the Duolingo English Test blog in December. I was waiting for some clarifications before sharing them, but those don’t seem forthcoming so I’ll pass along a few notes now.
According to CollegePulse, thirteen percent of the students in the group who graduated in 2025 took the Duolingo English Test. Meanwhile, 21% of students set to graduate in 2028 took the test. That looks good for Duolingo, as it suggests that their test continues to grow among America-bound students. And, of course, it is worth mentioning that the number was pretty much zero back in the class of 2020.
Fifty-two percent of students in the group (all graduating years) took the TOEFL test. That’s actually pretty good for TOEFL. I imagine the number was closer to 80% among the graduating class of 2020… but TOEFL seems to have held on to more than half of its old market share. Can’t complain too much about that. I would love to see numbers broken down by graduating year, though.
Thirty-one percent of the group (all graduating years) took an IELTS test. Just three percent took a PTE test. That speaks to why Pearson has launched an alternative test just for the American market.
Be sure to take all this with a grain of salt, as the methodology of the survey hasn’t been provided.