Currently, international students from more than a hundred countries around the world are studying at the Turkish Universities. Until this year, students nominated by foreign governments would come to Turkey through the exam known as TCS.  On January 11, 2012, scholarships given to international students by the Republic of Turkey were transformed into a new scholarship program. Principles for the new scholarship system are as follows: 1. Application: Interested students shall apply until the 1st of June 2012 through the web page of the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (www.ytb.gov.tr) on their own. Requested documents will be scanned and uploaded to the website by the applicants. Students will be able to apply with fewer documents than those requested in the past. Calendar (timetable) for the application process can be found at http://www.trscholarships.org/en 2. Selection of students will be made in two stages. In the first stage, the students' academic standing will be determined by evaluating at least one of the following criteria: graduation degree, university entrance exam degree, high school graduation  exam score, international exam score, average course scores for the students who are studying their last year in high school. Students will make preference of universities and departments during the application. After the evaluation of applications, applicants who are academically deemed to be adequate will be invited for interview. In cases that applicants are not available due the physical distance the evaluations will be based on at least one of the following methods: paper- submitted documents, phone interview or online interviews. In the second stage, interviews will be held. Interviewers will evaluate the relevancy of academic background of applicants to the departments he/she applied to, his/her vision about the own country and Turkey and finally his/her career planning. Applicants will be placed in to the one of universities/departments preferred according to the ranking of students’ scores in these two stages. Interviews will be conducted in June-July and August compatibly with the countries’ academic calendar. Successful applicants will be announced in August. 3. There is no limit for the number of applications. Applicants who are successful academically and whose field preferences are compatible with his/her personal skills will be placed into one of his/her preferences considering his/her academic capability. Besides, a fair amount of reserve applicants will be created for those applicants who decide to forego their right of studying in Turkey; instead, thosereserve applicants will be placed to the universities/departments based on their success ranking. 4. New regulations have been introduced with an aim to increase student satisfaction in the application to the university and department. Applicants will be able to choose to study at Turkey's exclusive private universities as well. Also the number of departments where the students could study in English has been increased. 6. Applicants have to demonstrate a minimum 60 % success in one of the following sections: high school graduation degree, university entrance exam degree, high school graduation exam score and international exam score. The students who have not yet graduated from their high school have to present their transcript showing that the average score of the courses attended until that time is minimum 60 %.

Moreover, detailed information about the scholarships and introductory video are presented on the webpage of http://www.ytb.gov.tr/bursbanner/