The YOS exam is a local Turkish test not recognized globally and is conducted by most Turkish universities. YOS stands for “Yabancı Uyruklu Öğrenci Sınavı,” which translates to “Foreign Student Exam.” It is a mandatory requirement for admission to Turkish government universities.
The score obtained by students in the YOS exam plays a significant role in enhancing their high school GPA, enabling them to apply to colleges with high cut-off scores such as medicine and pharmacy.
Where is the YOS Exam Held?
Each university determines the location for the exam, which is usually conducted within its campus. Students are required to attend the university campus to take the exam personally. The only exception is Istanbul University, where students from 65 countries can take the exam in their home country. The cost of the exam varies from one university to another and is paid through bank transfer to the university’s account.
How to Prepare for the YOS Exam?
Students can prepare for the YOS exam through study materials and numerous books available in both Turkish and English, found in Turkish cities. There is a dedicated book for each subject. Preparation for this exam may take from three to five months.
Due to the importance of the exam, several educational institutes offer lectures on the YOS curriculum. These lectures may last 7 to 8 months for regular courses or 4 months for intensive courses.
*Registration for the YOS exam is available every year from February or March to June. The exam date for each university can be found on its official website, where the university sets the exam date, and students must adhere to the specified date.
YOS Exam Questions
Generally, the YOS exam consists of:
- Mathematics questions: usually around 80 questions.
- Logic and intelligence questions: These questions measure students’ mental abilities and ability to think, typically around 40 questions.
- Engineering topics (including one book), and recently, another topic on math problem-solving questions has been added, starting from 2017 in various universities, typically around five questions.
It is worth mentioning that there is no fixed distribution of questions; the distribution varies from one university to another. However, different universities provide questions aimed at assessing students’ intellectual intelligence and mathematical analysis skills. The variation in question distribution is based on each university’s vision, student sorting methods, understanding of their capabilities, and conducting differentiation on this basis.
Students need to know these ratios and details for each exam before registering and what is specifically required to achieve an excellent result that gives the student priority in differentiation.
Regarding the allocated time for the YOS exam, in most universities, it is 100 minutes to answer 80 questions, meaning that the time allotted for each question is 1.15 minutes.
One challenge of the YOS exam is its independence and presentation in each university separately, resulting in the issue of recognition among Turkish universities. Some universities issue a list of universities that recognize their exams. However, universities with high student demand, especially in Istanbul and Ankara, usually recognize only their exams and refuse to accept any exams related to other universities.
In any case, the student’s priority for admission is to have passed the exam at the same university where it is submitted. Therefore, many students register for more than one exam for more than one university to increase their chances of obtaining a high score and getting a high differential rate.
*Universities use different abbreviations to refer to this exam. They usually put the word “YÖS,” preceded by the abbreviation of the university itself to indicate that the exam is affiliated with the university alone, without other universities.
