What do standardized test scores mean for undergraduate students?

I’ve been looking around at a lot of university websites lately, trying to think what scores would be needed to enter an undergraduate program, and then how much growth might be expected (needed) to occur over the course of one year of undergraduate studies in English. For now, this is just “educated” guess work, but it’s something I’d like to think more about in the future. For reference, the University of Calgary requires iBT TOEFL 83 for entrance to most of it’s undergraduate programs. I’ve set the score just a smidge higher than the university English language proficiency requirements for most measures.

Basically, while there are minimum English language proficiency requirements to enter an undergraduate program, those requirements can’t remain static. They need to grow in order to keep up with the demands of a student’s particular program of studies. A certain TOEFL score may be high enough to enter university, but it is not necessary high enough to exit a program of studies. This means that students need to continue focusing on their English throughout their stay at university.

	Entrance to 1st Year	Exit from 1st Year
iBT	85	90
Paper TOEFL	563	577
CBT TOEFL	223	233
CAEL	71	78
IELTS	7	8
MELAB	85	90
CLBA	7/8	8/9
English 30 Diploma Exam	50%	75%