Around the world, governments are increasingly linking language proficiency to immigration policy. Since international students are officially classified as migrants in many countries, limits on movement based on language proficiency levels could have an important impact on where students wishing to study through the medium of English are able to pursue their degrees. It could also influence whether students will have the freedom to study English for Academic Purposes as part of their sojourn abroad or whether they will need to study EAP in their home countries or elsewhere. These moves clearly have a bearing on the work of English for Academic Purposes researchers and practitioners as the decision on what levels of English proficiency are needed to study effectively, something that has previously been considered an academic decision, moves into the realm of government policy and legislation. At the time of writing, both the UK and Australian governments are undertaking reviews of their student visa regulations including the role of English language proficiency in eligibility to study in further and higher education. English language professionals cannot stand back from such processes but must find ways of working together with policy makers to ensure that the insights from EAP practice and research can be used to develop well-informed policy. Within academia itself, the setting of appropriate language entry requirements for students wishing to study through the medium of English as a second language has been a subject of on-going discussion since students first start moving across borders in large numbers to access higher education. In the United States of America, the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was first developed to assist with this purpose in 1964, and the English Proficiency Test Battery (EPTB or the Davies Test) was developed in 1965 to serve a similar purpose for UK higher education institutions. Despite this long history, higher education institutions themselves continue to struggle with selecting appropriate tests and setting entry score guidelines for minimum levels of English language proficiency. In an attempt to rectify the first situation, that of selecting appropriate English language tests, in 2009 BALEAP set up a working party to revise and develop the existing BALEAP Guidelines on English Language Proficiency Tests. The aim of the project is to provide a guide that assists EAP teachers and their respective institutions in understanding what it is they should be looking for when deciding which of the many tests available should be accepted as evidence of English language proficiency. The guide aims to become a web-based one-stop shop for information on language tests. Members of the working party will do the work of sifting through the plethora of information available from test providers, independent research reports and test reviews to condense this into test digests which include factual information as well as a critique of each test’s suitability for determining university applicants’ readiness to undertake academic study through the medium of English. The aim is to ensure that those responsible for setting policy on English language entry criteria have easy access to the information they need to make informed decisions about the appropriateness of using any given test to assess academic readiness. Once a language test has been selected, the next step in the decision-making process is to determine the standard of language proficiency that students will need at entry to university programmes. This is particularly challenging for two reasons. First, institutions need to consider the different role that language plays in courses as diverse as law and