YÖS, known as Foreign Student Exams or Foreign Student Admission Exams, are exams realized for admission of foreign students to Turkey universities. There is no validity of the results of the Foreign Student Examination outside of Turkey.
Applications of foreign candidates are accepted,
- Those with blue cards or not who are Turkish citizens by birth and who have permission to be out of Turkish citizenship from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (graduation place of secondary education is not important)
- Those with dual citizenship who have acquired Turkish citizenship with acquired while being foreign national or afterward (it does not matter where the candidate completed his secondary education)
- Those who graduated from secondary education in a foreign country except T.R.N.C but including people who are Turkish citizens and completed all of the secondary education (last 3 years of the secondary education for candidates who continued secondary education abroad before 01\02\2013) under National Education Ministry
- Those who are TRNC nationals, reside in TRNC and have completed their secondary education (high school) in TRNC and have GCE AL exam results and those who graduated from educational institutions in other countries between 2005 and 2010 and have GCE AL exam results.
In addition, candidates who will apply for the exams must be graduated from high school or equivalent schools or in graduation status. However, there is no obstacle for students who are not graduated from taking the exams.
There is no limitation in applying for the exams, and every student can take the exams, regardless of their age or nationality. In addition, there is no restriction on participating in the exams of different universities many times, and students can take as many as exams they want.
Applications are generally made online through the websites of universities in December and May. Detailed information about applications is announced on the websites of the universities. Digital photo, ID/passport, diploma/student certificate, transcript, etc. documents are requested.
Exams are held intensively in April-June, varying from university to university. Exam results are announced 1-4 weeks after the exams, again depending on the university.
Exams are held in the cities where the universities are located and in many centers in Turkey and abroad.
On the condition that universities that the exam is held in, change from year to year, some universities that have continuously held the exam in recent years: Istanbul, Cerrahpaşa, Marmara, Galatasaray, Yıldız Teknik, Ankara, Capital, Aegean, Dokuz Eylül, Anadolu, 19 May, Akdeniz, Karadeniz Teknik, Trabzon, Selçuk, Çukurova, Uludağ, Mersin, Erciyes, Atatürk, Yuzuncu Yil, Cumhuriyet, Celal Bayar, Dumlupınar, Süleyman Demirel, Pamukkale, Uşak, Muğla, Alanya, Inönü, Gaziantep, Kocaeli, Karabük, Sakarya, Düzce, Kastamonu, Giresun universities.
Application fees vary between 10 USD and 150 USD, depending on the university and the selected national or international exam center.
In the exams, an average of 80-100 is asked, and exam times range between 90 minutes – 120 minutes.
In the exam contents, questions from Mathematics (30 – 40 questions), Geometry (5-15 questions) and General Ability (IQ) (40-60 questions) courses are generally included, and questions from other courses are rarely and rarely encountered in the examinations of universities. questions in mathematics and geometry tests include more content on the widest range of problems based curriculum are being asked for example comparing with the TYT-AYT test applied in Turkey include more subjects for content. General Ability (IQ) questions generally consist of questions that measure the candidates ability to comprehend numerical relationships and abstract thinking skills. In addition, in a small number of university exams Turkish (50-60 questions) proficiency tests are also applied and these questions are asked in order to measure the Turkish level of students.
There is usually a base score application in the exams and it is determined as a prerequisite for application in many universities. Base scores range between 40-50 scores.
While calculating the exam scores, the correct and incorrect answers given by the candidates to the questions in the exams are counted in many universities. Universities calculate the raw scores by subtracting one-fourth of the number of wrong answers from the correct answers` amount of the candidates and converting these raw scores into scores out of 100. However, some universities only consider the number of correct answers of the candidates and determine the score calculation according to the number of correct answers.
According to the statistics made in recent years, the nationalities of the candidates who apply for the exams are: Turkey, Azerbaijan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Somalia, Morocco, Yemen, Egypt, Nigeria, USA, France, Jordan.
Although the numbers vary from university to university and from year to year; 1000-3000 candidates participate in the exams of the universities with low demand, 3000-8000 candidates participate in the exams of the universities with moderate demand, 8000-20000 candidates participate in the exams of the universities with high demand.