Late September 2026: the autumn session of the TOLC (October-November, the one for leftover places) is open, and between October 2026 and January 2027 the universities publish their calls for the 2027/28 cycle. Whoever signs up now for an autumn test sits it in four to eight weeks; whoever is aiming at the winter-spring window has months ahead to prepare calmly. The question that comes most often in this period is not “how do I prepare” but when is it worth doing it and how many times: it is the question this post answers. (The TOLC is the family of university admission tests run by the CISIA consortium; the TOLC-I, for instance, is the Italian engineering admission test.)
The three windows, and what really changes between them
CISIA organises the TOLC in three windows, which each university activates independently, choosing the dates it prefers within each:
- winter-spring (February-May): the window with the most time available to prepare, and generally less crowded than the others.
- summer (July-September): the most crowded, because it is where those who have just finished the maturità (Italy’s school-leaving exam) arrive, along with those retaking the test after a first attempt.
- autumn (October-November): the one for leftover places, for those who still have to complete enrolment or retake a test after the summer.
The difference between the three is not only one of calendar. What changes is the places available (in the autumn one, by definition, what remains is those not yet assigned), the crowding of venues and @CASA dates (the remote version), and above all how much time you have to prepare before the test. A more crowded window doesn’t mean a harder test — the test is the same — but it does mean fewer convenient dates, and for those sitting the test in person, venues that fill up sooner.
In Year 4: doing it early to see where you stand
Someone in Year 4 of high school can sit a TOLC without hurry, for a precise reason: to understand where you are, not to enter the ranking. The score obtained in Year 4 is for getting your bearings — seeing whether mainly maths, logic or reading comprehension is missing — not for competing for a place, because at that point enrolment is still far away. It is the moment when it is worth sitting the test more as a diagnostic than as a definitive attempt, without burning yourself out psychologically: if the result isn’t what you hoped for, there is plenty of time to work on it.
In Year 5: why February-May almost always beats July
For those in Year 5 who need to get into the ranking for the next academic year, the most common choice is between February-May and July-September. February-May is almost always the better choice, for a simple reason: preparation time. Whoever chooses the summer, sitting the test right next to the maturità, is trying to prepare the state exam and the TOLC at the same time — two different tests, with different syllabuses, in the busiest period of the year.
The worst choice, in particular, is taking the TOLC in July right after the maturità without having studied beforehand: it means arriving at the test with weeks less study than whoever has prepared since February, in exactly the period of the year when venues and @CASA dates are most crowded. Whoever sits a TOLC in February-May, on the other hand, has the double advantage of more time to prepare and a less saturated window — and if the result isn’t satisfactory, still has the summer and autumn ones ahead to try again.
How many times to retake it: the real limit is the month, not a total cap
There is no maximum number of TOLCs you can sit in total. The limit is different: no more than one test per calendar month for each type. This means two practical things:
- if you sat a TOLC-I in March, the next possible TOLC-I is in April, not before;
- but you can sit different types in the same month: a TOLC-I and a TOLC-E in the same month of March are both allowed, because the limit is per type, not overall.
Each session costs €35, non-refundable (2026 figure — the 2027 fee has not been published yet: check it on cisiaonline.it when it comes out). Retaking the same TOLC three times therefore has a direct cost of €105, on top of the preparation time between one attempt and the next. It is worth retaking the test when the previous score is clearly below the threshold needed for the course you are aiming at, or when in the meantime you have filled a specific gap that emerged from the section score — not to “see if it goes better” without having changed anything in your preparation.
The trap of “the best score counts”
This is the point on which there is the most confusion, and it is worth writing without ambiguity: “the best score counts” is not a CISIA rule. CISIA makes available the history of all the scores obtained, but it is the call for the individual degree course that establishes whether the best score or the last one sat counts in the ranking, and for how long a score not followed by enrolment remains valid.
This means that two students who sit the same TOLC twice can find themselves in different situations depending on the university they apply to: for one the higher of the two attempts counts, for another only the last one counts, whichever it is. There is no general rule valid everywhere. The formula to keep in mind, before deciding whether and when to retake a test, is always the same: check the call for your course. For the detail of how the subject score and the English one are calculated, the reference guide is how the TOLC score is calculated: here it is enough to remember that the subject sections give +1 per correct answer, 0 for omitted, −0.25 for wrong, while the English section — common to all types, 30 questions in 15 minutes, with no penalty — has a separate score, which typically serves for any language OFA (additional learning obligation) and doesn’t enter the subject score.
Two calendar examples
Case 1 — Year 5 of high school, aiming at Engineering. A Year 5 student who wants to enrol in Engineering the following year sits a first TOLC-I in February, after having studied maths, logic and the other sections of the test since mid-autumn. If the score is already in line with what the call for the chosen course requires, they stop there and concentrate on the maturità. If instead the logic section is weaker than the others, they work specifically on that for a month and retake the TOLC-I in April, respecting the calendar-month constraint relative to the first attempt. This way they arrive at the summer with an already solid score, without having to overlap the TOLC and the maturità in the same period.
Case 2 — undecided between two areas, two different TOLCs. A student undecided between Economics and a course in the science area plans two different types in the same month: a TOLC-E and a TOLC-S, both in March, which is allowed because the limit of one test a month applies to each type separately, not in total. They study the common sections (logic, reading comprehension) once only, and devote the last weeks before the test to the specific parts of each. With both scores in hand by March, they have the whole spring to decide which course to enrol in, without having to chase a second test under pressure later in the year.
A caution: Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine no longer go through the TOLC
A point that creates confusion every year, and that is worth clarifying at once: TOLC-MED and TOLC-VET no longer exist. For access to Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine you no longer go through a TOLC, but through the filter semester (semestre filtro), introduced by the law of 14 March 2025 no. 26 and by legislative decree 71/2025. It is not a CISIA choice that can be got round by looking hard: it is a reform by law, and concerns access to those specific courses. The other ten types — TOLC-I (Engineering), TOLC-E (Economics), TOLC-F (Pharmacy/CTF), TOLC-B (Biology/Biotechnology), TOLC-S (Sciences), TOLC-PSI (Psychology), TOLC-SU (Humanities), TOLC-AV (Agriculture/Veterinary sciences other than the single-cycle degree), TOLC-SPS (Political and social sciences) and TOLC-LP (Professionalising degrees) — remain active and work as always.
How to build your calendar backwards
The most reliable way to decide when to sit the TOLC is not to start from “when I feel ready”, but to start from the enrolment date and work backwards:
- Note the indicative deadline for enrolment in the course you are interested in (the 2027/28 calls come out between October 2026 and January 2027: as soon as your university’s comes out, check it).
- From there, subtract the time you need for a possible second attempt, respecting the one-calendar-month constraint between two tests of the same type.
- Set the date of the first attempt early enough to have a margin, but not so early that you haven’t yet completed the syllabus for the sections you need.
- Always check in the call for the specific course whether the best score or the last one counts, before deciding whether it is worth retaking the test.
This is the same reasoning I use when I help a student prepare for the engineering TOLC-I: preparation on the individual sections matters, but when you get to sit it matters just as much. The guides for the other TOLCs are TOLC-B, TOLC-F and TOLC-S; for the maths of the engineering one, TOLC-I maths: topics and worked exercises.
Before booking, it is worth having done at least one full cold practice test to know where you stand: how to set it up and read it is explained in TOLC practice test: how to do it and read the result.
@CASA or in person
The TOLC can be taken in two ways, to choose according to the availability published by the university: TOLC@CASA, remotely, or in person, at a university venue. Booking is done from the reserved area on cisiaonline.it, and not all dates offer both modes: in the most crowded windows (the summer one in particular), it is worth looking at the calendar early, because the dates with the most availability run out before the others.
To practise the format and the time available, at /simulazioni/tolc-i/ you’ll find a timed TOLC-I practice test: it is the example of the family of practice tests we cover, and you’ll find it together with all the others at /simulazioni/. The full overview of the lessons for admission tests covers preparation on logic, maths and reading comprehension for all the types of TOLC. If you have doubts about which window to choose for your specific case, write to me: the first introductory call is free and lasts half an hour.
