How to Apply for the Türkiye Bursları Scholarship (Complete Guide for International Students)

A quick note before we start: unlike our Stipendium Hungaricum article, this isn't a personal "how I won it" story — none of our writers have gone through Türkiye Bursları themselves. What follows is a carefully researched, plainly written guide based on the official YTB application portal and guidance documents, put together the same way we'd want a friend to explain it to us. Figures and dates change from year to year, so always cross-check the current cycle on the official portal before you rely on anything here for a deadline.

The Türkiye Bursları Scholarship — sometimes written as "Turkiye Burslari" or simply the Turkey Government Scholarship — is run by the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB). It funds undergraduate, Master's, PhD and short-term research students from almost anywhere in the world to study at a Turkish university, and it covers nearly every cost involved.

What makes it unusual is the application itself. Most fully funded government scholarships expect you to already have an offer from a university before you apply. Türkiye Bursları doesn't. You apply first, list your preferred universities and programmes, and if you're selected, YTB places you. That's a big advantage if you're still deciding where to study — but it also means the applicant pool is enormous, and the odds are long.

What Is the Türkiye Bursları Scholarship?

Türkiye Bursları is Turkey's flagship international scholarship programme, and it's been running since the early 1990s in one form or another. It's open to students of almost every nationality — Turkish citizens and dual nationals are the main exclusion — and it funds study at more than 200 Turkish universities, from well-known names like Boğaziçi and METU in the big cities to smaller institutions across Anatolia.

Each year the programme receives well over 100,000 applications from more than 150 countries and awards a few thousand scholarships, so the acceptance rate typically sits somewhere in the low single digits. It's genuinely one of the more competitive government scholarships out there, which is worth keeping in mind while you're preparing your application — meeting the minimum requirements gets you in the pool, not the scholarship.

On the plus side, the benefits are substantial and the process is entirely free. You never pay to apply, and anyone asking you for money to "process" your application or "guarantee" a place is running a scam.

What Does the Scholarship Actually Cover?

Türkiye Bursları is close to fully funded. Here's what's included, based on the official YTB benefits schedule:

Who Can Apply?

Eligibility comes down to four things: your passport, your age, your grades, and your current status.

Nationality

Open to citizens of any country other than Turkey. Dual nationals who hold Turkish citizenship are not eligible, even if their other passport would otherwise qualify. There's no published list of "partner countries" the way there is for some other scholarships — YTB simply allocates places by country based on application volume and its own priorities each year.

Age limits

• Undergraduate: under 21 at the application deadline
• Master's: under 30
• PhD: under 35
• Research scholarship: under 45

These are hard cut-offs. There's no appeal if you're a day over the limit, so double-check your age against the exact deadline date before you invest time in the rest of the application.

Academic requirements

• Undergraduate: minimum 70% in your secondary school results
• Master's and PhD: minimum 75% in your most recent degree
• Medicine, dentistry and pharmacy (any level): minimum 90%

Treat these as a floor, not a target. With acceptance rates this low, most successful applicants are well above the minimum.

Current enrolment status

If you're already studying in Turkey on a self-funded basis, you can only apply to move up a level — from a Bachelor's to a Master's, for example, not to repeat the same level. You also can't apply if you've previously held a Türkiye Bursları award or another Turkish government scholarship, and you can't hold this scholarship alongside another government-funded award covering the same period.

Language

No Turkish is required to apply. Almost everyone completes the mandatory TÖMER year regardless of whether their eventual degree is taught in Turkish or English. If your target programme is English-medium, the university may still ask for an English certificate like IELTS or TOEFL as part of its own admission criteria — check the specific programme page.

Degree Levels and Special Tracks

The scholarship runs across four categories: undergraduate (four years, six for medicine), Master's (typically two years), PhD (around four years), and a shorter research scholarship aimed at postdoctoral researchers and academics rather than degree-seeking students.

Within that, YTB also runs a small number of special tracks for particular applicant profiles. The Success Scholarship and Science Scholarship pay double the standard stipend and are reserved for applicants with an especially strong academic record — there's no separate application form, the selection committee identifies eligible candidates from the regular applicant pool. There's also a Humanitarian Aid Scholarship for students from countries affected by conflict or disaster, evaluated on different criteria; if that might apply to you, it's worth contacting YTB or your nearest Turkish embassy directly rather than relying on the standard guidance.

Documents You'll Need

Requirements vary slightly by degree level, but most applicants should prepare:

• A valid passport
• A recent passport-style photograph
• Your most recent academic transcripts and certificates (secondary school for undergraduate applicants; Bachelor's for Master's applicants; Master's for PhD applicants)
• A CV
• A Letter of Intent, written directly in the application portal
• One or two academic recommendation letters, depending on your level
• For PhD applicants, a research proposal outlining your intended topic and methodology

Everything needs to be in Turkish or English, or accompanied by a certified translation. Since documents are uploaded rather than posted, keep clear scans in PDF or JPEG format ready well before the portal opens — scrambling to get a transcript translated in the last week of the deadline is a common and avoidable mistake.

How to Apply, Step by Step

1. Check you're eligible against the age and GPA rules above before you invest time in the rest of the application.
2. Shortlist your programmes and universities. You can list up to 12 preferences — a mix of different programmes at the same institution, the same programme at different universities, or entirely different combinations. Since final placement depends on quotas as much as your preferences, spreading your list across a few highly ranked universities and a few less competitive ones tends to improve your odds of being placed somewhere, even if it isn't your first choice.
3. Prepare your documents in advance so you're not scrambling once the portal opens.
4. Create your account and complete the application at turkiyeburslari.gov.tr, filling in your academic history, language skills, activities, and your Letter of Intent, which is written directly into the portal and has a strict character limit — draft it elsewhere first, then paste and trim.
5. Upload every required document in the correct format. An incomplete application is disqualified automatically, so it's worth checking each section twice before submitting.
6. Submit before the deadline. The portal usually opens in early January and closes around mid-to-late February — always confirm the exact dates for the current cycle, since they shift slightly year to year. The system doesn't grant extensions for technical problems, and traffic is heaviest in the final days, so submitting early gives you room to fix anything that goes wrong.
7. Wait for the evaluation. Between March and May, YTB and its university partners review applications on academic performance, the strength of your Letter of Intent, and your overall profile. Shortlisted applicants are invited to interview.
8. Attend your interview, usually held online or at a Turkish embassy or consulate, typically between June and July.
9. Results are announced, usually in July or August, along with your assigned university if you're successful — which may or may not match your top preference.
10. Apply for your student visa and prepare to travel, with most scholars arriving in Turkey in August or September to begin the TÖMER year.

Meeting the minimum requirements gets your application read. It's the Letter of Intent and the interview that decide who actually gets a place.

The Interview

Not everyone who clears the document stage is invited to interview, and not everyone who is interviewed receives an offer — this stage filters out a lot of otherwise strong applications. From what past scholars and university liaison offices describe, the panel is mainly trying to answer three questions: do you actually understand the field you want to study, do you have a specific and realistic reason for choosing Turkey rather than "a scholarship" in general, and can you talk clearly about what you plan to do afterwards.

• Be ready to explain, specifically, why Turkey and why your chosen university — vague answers about "world-class education" tend not to land well.
• Know your Letter of Intent well enough to expand on any line in it without notes.
• Have a clear, realistic sense of what you'll do with the degree, especially if you plan to return to your home country.
• Expect subject-specific questions, particularly at Master's and PhD level.

The TÖMER Year

Almost every scholar spends their first year in Turkey not on their actual degree, but in a Turkish-language preparation course known as TÖMER. It runs for roughly eight to nine months at a centre attached to a Turkish university, usually starting from an absolute beginner level and building toward B2 or C1 fluency by the end. Your stipend, housing and insurance continue as normal throughout this year, and there's no extra cost.

Only applicants who already hold a certified C1-level Turkish certificate can apply to skip it — in practice, very few international applicants qualify. Even if your eventual degree programme is taught entirely in English, most scholars still complete the TÖMER year, and alumni consistently describe it as one of the most valuable parts of the whole experience, both for the language itself and for the friendships formed with classmates from dozens of other countries.

A Few Honest Tips

Frequently Asked Questions

Final Advice

Türkiye Bursları asks for a lot of patience — a long application window, a multi-stage review, and a wait of several months before you hear anything definite. It's also one of the more generous scholarships available to international students, and one of the few that doesn't ask you to have a university offer sorted out first.

If you're eligible, it's worth applying properly: prepare your documents early, write a Letter of Intent that actually sounds like you, and go into the interview able to explain, specifically, why this scholarship and why Turkey. Beyond that, treat the outcome the way you'd treat any competitive scholarship — as one strong shot among a few you're taking, not the only plan you're relying on.

Good luck with your application — and if it doesn't work out this cycle, it's a scholarship you can apply for again the following year.