ÖSYS

ÖSYS stands for Öğrenci Seçme ve Yerleştirme Sistemi, the centralized system used in Turkey to select and place students into undergraduate programs at higher education institutions. It was administered by ÖSYM (Ölçme, Seçme ve Yerleştirme Merkezi), a government agency responsible for national exams and placement processes.

The ÖSYS framework organizes standardized testing that determines university admissions and placement across public and many private universities. Over its history, the system underwent several reforms that altered exam formats and naming. For much of its later period, it operated on a two-stage approach with a general entrance test complemented by subject-specific assessments, and the exact names and structures changed as reforms were implemented.

In 2016, Turkey introduced the YKS (Yükseköğretim Kurumları Sınavı), a major reorganization of the admissions system that integrated and replaced earlier ÖSYS components. The YKS consists of three parts: TYT (Temel Yeterlilik Testi), AYT (Alan Yeterlilik Testi), and YDT (Yabancı Dil Testi), and it remains the central mechanism for placing students into undergraduate programs. The term ÖSYS is still used in historical context to describe the earlier centralized admission system, before the current YKS framework became standard.

The ÖSYS system and its successors play a critical role in admissions policies, university quotas, and the allocation of students to programs across Turkey’s higher education landscape.