My first English proficiency test did not go well. Which is kind of hilarious in hindsight because I was already living in Canada at the time. Speaking English every day. Working in English. But knowing a language and knowing how a specific test measures that language — those are two completely different things, and I learned that the hard way.
That whole experience messed with my head for a while, honestly. But it also eventually pushed me to build a test prep platform. We’ll get to that later.
Right now I want to talk about something that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: how the English test you choose for your university application can affect way more than just whether you get accepted.
I’m talking about scholarships. Visa approvals. And if you’re considering Canada or Australia, your entire immigration future after you finish your degree. Most students don’t think about any of this when they’re picking a test. They ask a friend what they took, or they Google “easiest English test” and go with whatever pops up first.
Bad move.
So What Are the Options?
There are four main English proficiency tests that universities care about. They overlap in some ways but they’re really not the same thing, and picking the wrong one for your situation can cost you time and money you didn’t need to spend.
TOEFL
The American favorite. Been around since 1964. Something like 12,000 institutions in 160-ish countries take it. Four sections (Reading, Listening, Speaking, Writing), everything very academic, total score out of 120. If you want to go to a US university, particularly for engineering or sciences, this is what admissions people there know best. Someone hands them a TOEFL score of 105 and they instantly know what that means — they don’t have to look anything up or compare it to some other scale. The competitive programs want somewhere around 90 to 110. The top-tier schools (think Ivy League, MIT, that level) want 100 or above, sometimes higher.
IELTS
This one’s big in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Run by the British Council along with IDP Education and Cambridge Assessment English. You’ve got two flavors: Academic for university admissions and General Training which is mostly used for immigration stuff. About 11,000 institutions worldwide accept it. The thing that makes IELTS different from everything else is the Speaking section. You’re in a room with a real person. Having an actual conversation. Not talking into a microphone at a screen. Some people really prefer that — it feels more natural to them. Other people I’ve talked to said it made them so nervous they couldn’t think straight. You kind of won’t know which type you are until you’re in that chair. Scoring is 0 to 9 in half-band increments (so you can get a 6.5, a 7.0, etc). UK schools generally ask for somewhere in the 6.0 to 7.0 range, competitive ones more like 7.0 to 7.5.
CELPIP
Okay, I need to be upfront here. I built a CELPIP prep platform. So I’m biased. I’ll try to just give you the facts and let you decide. CELPIP stands for Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program. It was built from the ground up for Canadian English and Canadian contexts. Most people know it as the immigration test — it’s one of just two tests that IRCC (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada) accepts for permanent residency. But if you’re planning to study in Canada — and especially if you think you might want to stay afterward — this is where the test choice gets kind of strategic. Canada’s become one of the top three countries in the world for international students. And tons of those students want permanent residency after graduating. So picture this: you take CELPIP while you’re still in school, and those same scores could potentially count toward your PR application through the Post-Graduation Work Permit pathway. One test doing the job of two. Saves money. Saves stress. Scores go from 1 to 12 and they line up directly with the CLB scale (Canadian Language Benchmarks), which is what IRCC uses for basically everything. Also — and this caught a lot of people off guard — Australia started accepting CELPIP for skilled migration visas back in August 2025. So the test is suddenly relevant beyond Canada too.
PTE Academic
The fast one. Everything’s on a computer, an AI does the scoring, and you usually have your results within 48 hours. I’m not going to pretend I know as much about PTE as the other three, but the quick turnaround is genuinely useful if your application deadline is breathing down your neck. Seems to be most popular with students heading to Australia or the UK.
Why Does It Even Matter Which One You Take?
Fair question. If your English is good, shouldn’t any test work?
Sort of. But not really.
Most universities technically accept several English tests. The word “accept” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence though. There’s a real difference between a test the school accepts because it’s on some official list, and a test the admissions office actually knows and trusts. When you submit a score from the test they prefer, the person reading your file can immediately understand what that number means. They’re not squinting at a conversion table or wondering if a 9.0 on one scale is the same as 115 on another. That might seem like a minor thing. It isn’t — not when that admissions officer has a stack of 200 applications to get through that week.
Here’s a rough breakdown of who prefers what:
US schools — TOEFL, typically want 80 to 110
UK schools — IELTS Academic, usually 6.0 to 7.5
Canadian schools — IELTS or CELPIP, around CLB 7 or IELTS 6.5
Australian schools — IELTS, PTE, or CELPIP, around IELTS 6.5 or PTE 58
The After-Graduation Stuff That Nobody Mentions Until It’s Too Late
If this article has one section you should actually read carefully, it’s this one.
Say you go to school in Canada. You like it. You want to stay. Now you need to think about Express Entry, permanent residency, all of that. And guess what — you need English test scores for that too. Specifically CELPIP or IELTS General Training.
I know people who took IELTS Academic for their university application, graduated, decided they wanted to stay in Canada, and then had to go take a completely different test for immigration. More money, more prep time, more sitting in a test center when they could’ve been working on their PR application. If they’d thought about this back when they were choosing their first English test, they could’ve avoided the whole headache.
Same thing with scholarships, by the way. Some have minimum English score requirements. And there’s a real difference between an application where the English score just barely clears the bar versus one where the score is genuinely impressive. Schools notice. They won’t tell you that in the FAQ section of their website, but they do.
And visas. Every country — US, UK, Canada, Australia — wants proof of English ability for student visas. But they don’t all accept the same tests. I once talked to a student who spent two months preparing for one test and then found out the country he was applying to didn’t accept it for the visa. Two months wasted. Just because he didn’t check first.
What Actually Works When You’re Preparing
I’ll be quick here because nobody needs another 500 words about study tips.
Go take a real practice test. Not read about one. Not watch a YouTube video about one. Actually do the thing. Set a timer, find a quiet room, and go through the full test. You will probably score lower than you expect. That’s normal and that’s the whole point — you need to know the real starting line, not the imaginary one in your head. If you’re prepping for CELPIP, I built CELPIP Simulator (https://www.celpipsimulator.com) for exactly this — free full-length mock exams with AI feedback on all four sections. I made it because nothing like it existed when I was the one studying.
After that, find your weak section and hit it hard for a few weeks. Don’t spread yourself thin across all four sections equally. Almost everybody has one part that’s pulling their score down more than the others. Focused work on that one area moves the needle faster than anything else.
Practice with real time limits. I’m serious about this one. Time pressure ruins people who actually know the material. The questions aren’t necessarily hard. Answering them fast enough under stress? That’s the hard part.
Get somebody else to look at your Speaking and Writing practice. A teacher, a study partner, an AI tool, whatever. You can self-study Reading and Listening fine on your own. But you have blind spots in your own speaking and writing that you genuinely cannot see by yourself.
Read the scoring rubric. Each test grades things differently. When you know what the examiner is checking for, you can aim for those specific things instead of just generally trying to “do well.” Almost nobody bothers with this step and I honestly don’t understand why.
Picking Your Test
Forget what your friend took. Think about your own situation.
What test does your specific program actually require? Not the university homepage — the actual department page. I’ve seen those differ.
Are you thinking about staying in the country after graduating? If yes, pick a test that covers immigration too. One test beats two tests.
Do you test better on a computer or on paper? TOEFL, CELPIP, and PTE are computer-only. IELTS lets you do it on paper. Some people have a strong preference and that’s completely valid.
When’s your deadline? PTE scores come back in about 48 hours. Paper-based IELTS can take almost two weeks. That gap matters.
Is there even a test center near you? Doesn’t matter how perfect a test is if you have to fly somewhere to take it.
One Last Thing
Back when I was figuring out my own immigration path in Canada, I treated the English test choice as an afterthought. Just grab whatever’s available, get a decent score, move on. Looking back, that was a mistake and it cost me time I didn’t need to lose.
The people I’ve worked with who take this decision seriously — who spend an afternoon actually researching which test fits their situation instead of just defaulting to whatever — end up in noticeably better shape. Not just for admissions. For everything that comes after.
Worth the afternoon.
Author
Ashkan Goharfar is the founder of CELPIP Simulator (https://www.celpipsimulator.com), an AI-powered practice test platform for the CELPIP English exam. Free mock exams, instant AI feedback on all four sections, available in 14 languages.
