Can a student be admitted to masters programme even if his/her English level is lower than the minimum requirements?

Question

Recently, I just won a scholarship from my government for pursuing a master's degree in some Canadian universities. I checked the minimum requirements for the English level and I noticed that almost all of them are asking for at least an overall score of 93 points or 100 on the toefl ibt examination (6.5 for IELTS but only 2 or 3 are asking for this last exam). I recently received my score from ETS and I got 85 points in overall (26 points on the writing section as my strongest point). Although I know I am still missing a few more points, I have published one paper on the IEEE computer society, I have won 3 scholarships for continuing my education (70% scholarship in my home university, 100% scholarship for doing a summer internship in Canada and 100% scholarship for studying 6 months in Sweden), and I worked as a full time employee during my last semester as a web developer and programmer. My bachelor is Computer Systems and IT. I am trying to pursue a MCs degree in Computer Science oriented towards data mining and cloud computing. The universities I am interested are McMaster, Dalhousie, University of Alberta, UBC and Waterloo. Despite the fact that I don't have the "minimum English requirement", should you recommend me to retake and work on my English skills or should I try to apply for any of these universities? All comments, suggestions and proposals are welcome :)

Answer 1

Even with your scholarship, you must meet the minimum requirements for your program. The TOEFL is testing you on if you can handle an English speaking university. The advanced speaking and writing is the level of English you will experience every day, all day.. so the test helps to ensure that you will succeed on your studies. An 85 is not that bad for the first time. Many students must take the test multiple times. Don't give up when you are so close, In 3-6 classes you can improve on what you are doing incorrect, and then re take the exam. Hope this helps.