u/ZealousidealProof483

I just saw a post in r/Professors, where someone was saying that the students are deliberately writing worse to avoid AI detection flags.

>Weber-Wulff et al. (2023) tested 14 detection tools and none broke 80% accuracy. Stanford researchers (Liang et al., 2023) found that GPT detectors flagged over 61% of genuine essays by non-native English speakers as AI generated. One tool flagged nearly 98% of TOEFL essays. OpenAI built their own detector, it correctly caught just 26% of AI text while false flagging 9% of human writing, and they shut it down themselves.

The 98% flag is what is making me nervous. After all these preparations and applications to different universities, are we going to be flagged as an AI? or like he/she said, should we make mistakes for the sake of not being flagged? Is this the new norm.. 😭😭

I know that the entire TOEFL scoring system changed in January 2026. Like, not a small tweak. The 0-120 scale is basically being replaced by a 1-6 band score (CEFR-aligned, similar to IELTS).

But I'm confused here: ETS says score reports will show both scores until 2028. Fine. But I've been emailing a few universities about their cutoffs and half of them still list the old 0-120 requirement on their websites. Some admissions pages haven't been updated at all.

So what do you actually do when you apply? Do you just match your new band score to the old scale yourself and hope the admissions officer understands the conversion? Or do you contact each university individually to confirm?

I'm applying to programs in Canada and the UK mostly. Has anyone gone through this recently and actually heard back from admissions offices about how they're handling it?

Also side note, the Reading and Listening sections are adaptive now, so older practice tests are kind of useless. Use only the updated practice materials. Just a heads up for anyone else who didn't know.

Would appreciate any clarity from people who've actually sat the new format or dealt with admissions this cycle.

I see this question a lot so let me just give you a real answer instead of the usual "it depends" non-answer.

It actually does depend, but on one specific thing: how comfortable you already are with English day to day. Not "studied English in school" comfortable. Actually comfortable.

Can you watch a show or a podcast in English without subtitles and follow most of it? Can you sit down and write something out without mentally translating from your native language? Can you hold a basic conversation without freezing up?

If yes to most of those, honestly, you probably don't need 2-3 months. You need maybe 2-3 weeks. Because the TOEFL at its core is not a language learning exam. It's a language proficiency exam. The 2026 format especially makes this clear. It's been shortened to about 90 minutes, speaking now runs without any prep time (you just respond naturally), and writing tasks are more practical. The whole thing is designed to test how you actually use English, not how well you memorise templates..

So if your English is already solid, you just need to understand the format and practice a few mock tests. Resources like TOEFLResources are genuinely useful for this since the guides are updated regularly for the 2026 changes. I would also recommend the ones listed here: resources.

If your English needs actual work though, then yes, 2-3 months is realistic but only if you're consistent. Like 4 hours a day of actual engagement: reading articles, listening to podcasts, writing regularly, speaking out loud. Not passive studying. Active use.

The people who struggle aren't usually unprepared for the test format. They're unprepared in the language itself. Fix that first and the test takes care of itself..

All the best:)

This question is obviously to non-native english speakers, but every answer is welcome. I've seen this trend on the internet of native English speakers who think English is hard. It's not that I speak many languages, only English and Spanish, but I think English is quite comfortably on the easier side. Spelling is all over the place and inconsistent, but leaving that aside I can't find much else that is actually difficult. Verbs are simple, sentence structure is straightforward, there are no cases, no tones, the alphabet is simple... What do you think?