Who Takes What: UK Undergraduate Admissions

Today’s entertainment is a list of which tests are accepted for undergraduate admissions in the United Kingdom. I’ve looked at the 20 mainstream universities with the most non-UK students per HESA.

This is a trickier exercise than examining American and Canadian schools. Here tests from the SELT list are widely accepted (but sometimes with exceptions), as well as a surprisingly large grab bag of non-test qualifications.

As Nicholas Cuthbert highlighted in the PIE news last year, 28 percent of students in the 23/24 cycle bypassed an English test thanks to previous qualifications and 7 percent were exempt from testing for some reason (per data from Enroly).

The point of this exercise was to see which non-SELT tests were explicitly mentioned as acceptable by the 20 universities. According to Enroly’s data, such tests were used by about 13 percent of international students in the 23/24 cycle. I imagine that the figure is higher this year, and higher yet when undergraduate admissions are isolated.

Anyhow, the cited tests were:

• DET: 5 universities
• Oxford ELLT: 4 universities
• Oxford Test of English: 3 universities
• Kaplan Test of English: 3 universities
• Password: 3 universities

The DET was listed as acceptable in a subset of cases by the University of Westminster, but I haven’t counted it above.

The full list (sloppy) is after the break.

1. University College London

• IELTS
• TOEFL
• Cambridge C1/C2
• PTE
• Trinity
• LanguageCert

2. University of Manchester

“a wide range of tests” including

• IELTS
• LanguageCert
• PTE
• Trinity
• Cambridge C1/C2
• TOEFL

3. King’s College London

Cambridge C1/C2

• IELTS (online is okay)
• TOEFL
• OET
• PTE (no online)
• Trinity

4. University of Edinburgh

• IELTS
• PTE (only for 2025 entries.  Not for 2026+)
• TOEFL
• Trinity
• Oxford ELLT
• Cambridge C1/C2

5. University of the Arts, London

• IELTS

6. Coventry University

• The SELT list

7. University of Leeds

• IELTS
• TOEFL (no online)
• PTE (no online)
• LanguageCert
• Oxford Test of English
• Oxford ELLT
• Cambridge C1/C2
• Trinity

8. University of Bristol

• The SELT List
• Oxford ELLT

9. Imperial College of Science, et al

• DET
• IELTS
• LanguageCert
• OET
• PTE
• TOEFL
• Trinity
• Cambridge C1/C2

10. University of Warwick

• Cambridge C1/C2
• DET
• IELTS
• PTE
• TOEFL
• Trinity

11. The University of Birmingham

• TOEFL
• IELTS
• PTE
• Cambridge
• LanguageCert
• Trinity

12. University of Liverpool

• IELTS
• DET
• TOEFL
• PTE
• Cambridge
• Kaplan Test of English

13. University of Westminster

• The SELT list
• Oxford ELLT
• Password
• Kaplan Test of English
• DET (some programs)

14. University of Glasgow

(each department lists its requirements, and these are from the Chemistry department)

• IELTS
• TOEFL
• Cambridge C1/C2
• PTE
• Oxford English Test
• LanguageCert
• Password
• Trinity

15. University of the West of England (Bristol)

• In-house test
• The SELT list
• Kaplan
• Oxford ELLT
• DET

16. University of Exeter

• TOEFL
• IELTS
• PTE
• LanguageCert
• Skills for English
• DET

17. University of Sheffield

• IELTS
• Cambridge C1/C2
• LanguageCert
• Oxford Test of English
• PTE
• TOEFL
• Trinity

18. University of Durham

• The SELT List
• Password

19. The University of St. Andrews

• The SELT List

20. De Montfort University

• IELTS only?