Mason students participate in rigorous graduate coursework as part of their university educational experience. Therefore, students at Mason must have a full command of academic English at the graduate level in order to be successful throughout their studies. All new graduate students are expected to accurately comprehend written graduate-level English, clearly understand rapidly spoken English in classroom lectures and in professional settings, write with proper grammar and syntax, and be able to respond quickly in English using a vocabulary appropriate for collegiate settings.
For this reason, Mason has a high standard of English proficiency for graduate admission. All Mason graduate programs strictly require applicants to meet that English proficiency standard. Applicants who have earned a bachelors, masters, or doctoral degree from a regionally accredited university in the United States, Canada (excluding province of Quebec), United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand are considered to have met that standard. All other applicants are required to take an English proficiency examination and meet minimum scores set by Mason in order to be considered for admission. The TOEFL, Pearson Test of English, or IELTS exams can be used to meet this requirement.
Decisions regarding English proficiency are the sole discretion of Mason Admissions offices.
Listed below are the English proficiency examinations that Mason accepts and the corresponding minimum score requirements and submission procedures. Individual programs reserve the right to set higher minimum scores:
IBT 88 points total AND a minimum of 20 points in each section
CBT 230 points
PBT 570 points
6.5 total band score
59 overall score
All English proficiency scores are valid for two years from the test date. Official test scores must be provided directly from the testing agency. In general, you may use the institution code 5827 to send your scores to Mason. For IELTS and the Person Test of English, please make sure you have scores sent to the Mason Office of Graduate Admissions. It is not necessary to use the exact department code as test scores arrive to our institution electronically.
All transcripts from colleges or universities outside the United States must be translated into English, if applicable, and submitted for evaluation to the graduate school to which the applicant is applying. Mason will provide evaluation service free of charge for all international transcripts. Because of volume, more time may be needed to process applications requiring a Mason evaluation. For expedited service, students can submit their documents to a recognized U.S. evaluation service at their own expense. A list of recognized evaluation services is available in Mason’s Admissions Office or at www.naces.org.
Graduate students’ documents should show the award of either a bachelor’s degree or equivalent, or a graduate degree.