TOEFL vs. IELTS vs. Duolingo: How to Choose Your English Test and Hit Score Requirements Before November Deadlines

It is mid-August. If you are applying Early Decision or Early Action this fall, you have roughly eleven weeks until November 1. For international applicants, that window has to absorb one more thing that domestic applicants never think about: a certified English proficiency score, tested, scored, and officially delivered to every school that wants one.

Most students treat this as a formality. They pick whichever test their friends took, register for a date in October, and assume it will work out. Then something goes wrong — a school does not accept the test they took, a section minimum they never read about drops them below the bar, or a score report that “was sent” does not appear in a portal until December.

The choice of test is a strategy decision, and August is exactly when it should be made. Here is how to make it well.

The three tests are not interchangeable

Start with what each one actually is, because the differences drive everything downstream.

TOEFL iBT is the academic-English standard most familiar to U.S. admissions offices. It runs about two hours and covers Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing, with each section scored 0–30 for a total of 0–120. The Speaking section is recorded — you talk to a microphone, not a person. The Writing section includes an integrated task (read, listen, then synthesize) and an Academic Discussion task where you respond to an online classroom prompt.

IELTS Academic uses a nine-band scale in half-band increments, with a band for each of the four skills and an overall band that averages them. The defining structural difference is Speaking: it is a live, face-to-face (or video) interview with a trained examiner, roughly 11–14 minutes across three parts. Students who freeze in front of a microphone often perform noticeably better here. Note the Academic/General Training distinction — university admissions wants Academic. General Training is for migration and work, and submitting it is a costly, avoidable error.

Duolingo English Test (DET) is the newcomer that changed the economics of this decision. It is roughly an hour, taken at home on your own computer, adaptive in difficulty, scored 10–160, and typically far cheaper than the other two. Results usually arrive within about two days. It also includes video and writing samples that institutions can review alongside the numeric score.

The tests measure overlapping skills, but they reward different things. TOEFL rewards academic stamina and note-taking under load. IELTS rewards conversational range and the ability to think aloud with a human. DET rewards fast, flexible processing across many short item types and penalizes nothing so much as an unstable internet connection.

Acceptance is the first filter, not the last

Before you compare formats, compare acceptance — and do it against your actual list, not against general reputation.

The overwhelming majority of U.S. universities accept both TOEFL and IELTS Academic. DET acceptance expanded dramatically and is now very wide, but it is still the least universal of the three, and a handful of programs — particularly some graduate, nursing, and professional programs — either do not accept it or accept it only conditionally.

Do this today, in a spreadsheet: one row per school, columns for TOEFL accepted, IELTS accepted, DET accepted, minimum overall score, section minimums, waiver policy, and score-report deadline. Fill it from each school’s own international admissions page, not from a third-party aggregator. Aggregators go stale, and a stale row is how students end up retaking a test in December.

The rule that falls out of this exercise is simple: choose the test accepted by every school on your list. If even one target school does not take DET, and DET is otherwise your best fit, you either drop DET or you accept that you will need a second test for that one school. Neither is wrong — but decide it deliberately in August rather than discovering it in October.

Score requirements, decoded

Published minimums are floors, not targets. Three distinctions matter.

Minimum versus competitive. A school listing “TOEFL 100” means applications below 100 may not be reviewed. It does not mean 100 is competitive there. At highly selective institutions, admitted international students often cluster ten or more points above the stated minimum. Treat the published number as the price of entry and aim above it.

Overall versus section minimums. This is the requirement that quietly sinks the most applications. Plenty of schools require both an overall score and a per-section floor — for example, an overall band of 7.0 with no band below 6.5, or TOEFL 100 with at least 22 in each section. A student with a 105 built on a 28 Reading and an 18 Speaking has not met a 22-per-section requirement, regardless of the strong total. If your score profile is lopsided, your weakest section is your real score.

Waivers. Many schools waive the English requirement if you have completed several years of instruction in English, or if you hit a threshold on the SAT/ACT English or Reading sections. Waiver criteria vary enormously and are frequently misread. If you think you qualify, email the international admissions office and get the confirmation in writing before you skip the test.

Match the test to your profile

Once the acceptance filter has narrowed your options, choose on fit. Be honest in this diagnosis — the goal is your highest real score, not the test you wish suited you.

Choose TOEFL if your list skews toward U.S. universities that clearly prefer it, you are already strong at academic reading and lecture note-taking, you are comfortable speaking into a microphone with a countdown running, or you want the largest available supply of official practice material. TOEFL also offers MyBest scores, which combine your highest section scores across valid test dates — genuinely useful if you plan more than one attempt, though acceptance of MyBest varies by school and must be checked.

Choose IELTS if you perform better in live conversation than in recorded monologue, you are applying to a mix of U.S., U.K., Canadian, and Australian institutions, handwriting or the paper format suits you, or you have already been preparing on the nine-band scale. IELTS also offers One Skill Retake at participating centers — the ability to retake a single section rather than the entire test — which can be the fastest route to fixing one section minimum. Availability differs by country and test center, so confirm it locally before you build a plan around it.

Choose DET if every school on your list accepts it, budget or test-center access is a real constraint, you need a score quickly, and you test well in adaptive, fast-switching formats. The speed advantage is genuine: for a student deciding in late September, DET may be the only option that still fits comfortably before a November 1 deadline.

Work backward from November 1

Here is the calendar that actually governs the decision. Deadlines are for received materials, not for materials you initiated.

Typical score delivery, once scored: TOEFL roughly 4–8 days after the test; IELTS computer-delivered around 1–5 days, paper-based around 13; DET around two days. Add institutional processing on top — the days between a score arriving at the university and appearing in your applicant portal. That processing can be quick or can take a couple of weeks in peak season.

Working backward from November 1 with a reasonable safety margin:

• Now through late August: finish the acceptance-and-requirements spreadsheet, choose your test, take one full-length diagnostic under real timing.
• Late August through late September: four to five weeks of focused preparation targeted at your weakest section, since section minimums are where applications fail.
• Late September through early October: primary test date. This is the one that matters.
• Mid-October: scores arrive. Compare against every row in your spreadsheet — overall and per-section.
• Mid- to late October: retake window if needed. This is precisely why the primary date belongs in early October rather than late.

If you are reading this in mid-August, you have room for a primary attempt and a retake. That is a comfortable position. It stops being comfortable around the last week of September.

The logistics that sink applications

Three failures recur every single year, and none of them are about English ability.

Sending scores to the wrong place. Each institution has a specific code or an electronic delivery method, and graduate programs sometimes use a different destination than the undergraduate office. Verify the destination code on the school’s own page. A score delivered to the wrong department is, functionally, a score that was never sent.

Assuming “sent” means “received.” Log in to each applicant portal and confirm the item shows as received. Do this two weeks before the deadline, not two days. If it has not appeared and you have a delivery confirmation, that is a solvable problem in mid-October and a crisis on October 31.

Ignoring the validity window. These scores generally expire after two years. If you tested early in high school to satisfy a summer program requirement, check whether that score is still valid on your application date.

Common mistakes worth naming

• Preparing for the wrong version. IELTS General Training instead of Academic. It happens more than you would think.
• Optimizing your best section. Studying Reading because Reading feels good is comfortable and useless if Speaking is what is below the section minimum.
• Booking a test date before checking seat availability. Popular centers fill up in September and October. Register early; you can usually reschedule for a fee.
• Taking the test cold to “see what happens.” A diagnostic at home costs nothing. A wasted official attempt costs money and a slot in your calendar.
• Treating the essay as separate from the test. Your writing score and your application essays are read by the same office. Consistent, natural English across both is part of the impression you make.

The bottom line

The best English test is the one every school on your list accepts, that plays to how you actually perform, and that leaves you enough runway for a retake. In mid-August, all three of those conditions are still satisfiable. Build the spreadsheet this week, take a diagnostic this weekend, register for an early-October date, and spend September on your weakest section rather than your favorite one.

Eleven weeks is enough. Six weeks is not.