With the recent test center cancellations in China, the TOEFL® and GRE® program teams at ETS want to make you aware of a few activities underway to assist students there so that they can complete their applications for your programs.

To ensure that anyone who wishes to test may do so, we continue to offer TOEFL and GRE at home testing to students in mainland China via the TOEFL iBT® Home Edition, the TOEFL® Essentials™ test, and the GRE General Test at home.

In cases where test centers must close temporarily, test takers are notified and can reschedule their TOEFL iBT and GRE tests to the at home versions. Test takers also have the option of a full refund for a cancelled test.

More than 2 million students around the world have taken the TOEFL and GRE tests from home since their launch in March 2020. Benefits of testing at home include:

Convenience — Appointments are generally available within 24 hours of registration and around the clock, 4–7 days a week.
Safety — Testing at home mitigates the risk of exposure to COVID.
Stability — The tests have exactly the same content and format whether taken at home or at a test center, so students don’t need to change their study plan to accommodate a change in testing location.
Security — Home security is comparable to test center security, with live, remote proctors for real-time human monitoring in addition to best-in-class technology used to monitor each test session.

TOEFL iBT Home Edition and the GRE General Test at home are offered through an authorized arrangement with the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA). Test takers can purchase an authorized test voucher from the HKEAA website. They can then use the voucher code to schedule a testing appointment at ets.org/mytoefl and ets.org/mygre.

Rescheduling students from taking the test in a center to their homes may take a few days, so we ask that, to the extent possible, you provide some leniency to Chinese applicants regarding deadlines for providing their test scores. You might also wish to reach out to students from China who have expressed interest in your programs but haven’t yet completed their applications to encourage them to test from home.

Thank you for your support.

Mohammad Kousha
Associate Vice President,
Global Growth


Alberto Acereda, Ph.D., MBA
Associate Vice President,
Global Higher Education