The Exam for Foreign Students for Higher Education in Türkiye (TR-YÖS/1), administered by the Student Selection and Placement Center (ÖSYM), has been conducted in the United States for the first time, marking a strategic expansion in Türkiye’s international higher education framework.
The exam was held in New Jersey at the Maarif Schools campus on Sunday, where a significant number of candidates, predominantly students of Turkish origin residing in the U.S., participated in the session. The initiative is being positioned as part of a broader institutional push to strengthen Türkiye’s role as a regional and global education hub.
According to statements shared on Monday by ÖSYM President Prof. Dr. Bayram Ali Ersoy, the organization is currently conducting large-scale synchronized examinations across multiple geographies, reinforcing its operational capacity as an international testing authority.
He emphasized that TR-YÖS is now being implemented across 27 countries with thousands of candidates and coordinated staffing structures, reflecting a scalable and standardized assessment architecture.
The exam was previously administered by individual universities for international applicants until 2023. However, following a policy shift under the Council of Higher Education (YÖK), responsibility was transferred to ÖSYM, enabling centralized governance, uniformity, and global deployment.
Officials highlighted that the U.S. implementation required adjusted operational protocols, including time-zone synchronization and differentiated exam versions to maintain exam integrity and prevent cross-border content leakage.
In the U.S., the session began at 09:15 a.m. local time, diverging from the simultaneous start in other participating regions.
The exam is designed as a dual-assessment framework, measuring numerical reasoning and fundamental mathematics competencies. Each section includes 40 questions, with a total response time of 100 minutes.
The test is currently administered in 6 languages, reflecting its expanding accessibility strategy across diverse applicant pools.
Institutional representatives noted that TR-YÖS is being positioned not only as an admissions mechanism but also as a strategic soft-power instrument aimed at enhancing Türkiye’s global education footprint. The long-term roadmap includes expansion into additional regions, particularly the Balkans, Turkic states, and Africa, with a vision to scale participation to hundreds of thousands of candidates across more than 100 countries.
