Some 880,000 new people placed in Turkish universities

Duvar English

Turkey's Student Selection and Placement Center (ÖSYM) announced the university placement results of Higher Education Entrance Exams (YKS), pointing out that 99.8 percent of the quotas were filled in all departments. Compared to last year, the number of candidates placed this year increased by about 47,000 people.

Accordingly, 898,024 of the 923,411 available places in all higher education institutions were filled while a total of 25,387 places remained vacant.

Some 707,000 out of the total 717,000 available quotas have been occupied within state universities, leaving around 10,000 quotas unclaimed. Similarly, approximately 176,000 out of 188,000 quotas in private universities have been filled, leaving roughly 12,000 quotas vacant.

No one preferred 81 programs across the country especially in engineering and architecture departments. In medical faculties, the number of vacant quotas exceeded last year and reached above 700. 

Vacant placements have tripled compared to last year, and experts attributed this problem to the increasing fees of private universities. 

Koç University, with an annual fee of 278,000 Turkish liras in the previous year, has seen an increase to 520,00 liras ($19,142) for the current year. Similarly, Sabancı University, which carried a fee of 240,000 liras just a year ago, has surged to 510,000 liras ($18,774). Bilkent University, previously priced at 118,000 liras, has also experienced an uptick to 300,000 liras (11,043).

This year, the most placed candidate group was graduates who had not been enrolled in any program in previous years. Of the high school seniors who took the exam for the first time this year, about 300,000 were placed in university.

Students placed in same departments with 100-point difference

As a result of the university exam, a student can score a maximum of 560 points and the government has abolished threshold scores for entering a department.

Among the students who will study in the same departments at different universities, there were some very high differences, according to the daily BirGün.

While a student entered the medical faculty of the capital Ankara’s Hacettepe University with a score of 559, the lowest score in medicine was 459. The person who entered Istanbul’s Boğaziçi University psychology department in the top rank scored 547 points, while the person who entered the same department at Istanbul Rumeli University in the last rank scored 166 points.

Due to the quota for women over the age of 35 introduced by the government, there were high differences between students who entered the same department as well. 

For example, the first applicant to the Boğaziçi Physics Department scored 533 points, while the first applicant from the over-35 quota scored 166 points. In the Middle East Technical University Economics Department, the first applicant got 556 points, while the last applicant from the over-35 quota got 190 points.

University registrations will be held between Aug. 28 and Sep. 1.