StudyingMedicineInTurkey.com

General:

The application for universities can be quite challenging, especially when the university you are applying for is in a foreign country. Many applicants search on the university's web pages and on other forums to learn more about it. The problem with the information on the internet is that these are most of the time inaccurate, written in a general language, and are not able to satisfy your needs. It is much more effective to hear something from a foreign student, who has helped other foreign students during their application, than spending endless time being confronted with the same undetailed information found on the web. The application procedure is not as difficult as someone may think.

Requirements:

1) Basic biometrical photo (Note: Try to use the latest photo of yourself. There is no law about having identical photos on each document send, but they should not show significant variations. My university has listed some detailed expectations like a specific size such as 50 mm X 60 mm or white background. Once I did the application for a foreign student, who had the latest photo of himself on his id-card additionally to an almost 5 years younger photo of himself on his passport and got accepted)

2) Passport page containing both photo and id information (Note: Look at the deadline of validity. Different addresses might be listed on your several identification cards. This should be avoided. As I told in the requirement before, the foreign student I have done the application for did have a different residence on one of his identification cards and still got accepted)

3) High school diploma with its „approved“ translation into Turkish (Note: This document plays an important role in the application procedure as it is handled carefully by the examination board. The translation can be done in any „approved“ translation office. My high school diploma was translated by a regular translation office and was not approved by any governmental institution, although the university required an „approved“ translation according to their webpage)

4) Exam result or certificate with its „approved“ translation into Turkish (Note: This can be considered as the most important document in the application, based on the fact that it is a significant criterion in the evaluation for the examination board. So carefully look for the completeness, integrity, and validity of this document)

5) ID information (Note: Required for approving that the applicant can apply as a foreign student)

6) Bank receipt providing information about the payment of the application fee and the applicant‘s name

Procedure:

The application period starts towards the end of spring and continues until the beginning of autumn, which slightly varies between the different universities. The specific dates are also available on the university's web pages. As an example, the application period of my university had reached from the 15th of May to the 12th of July in the year 2020. So you have enough time for the application. This should not deceive you. Some procedures such as the translation of your high school diploma or your exam results can take more time than expected. It took nearly a week for me to get the approval done, which can vary because many application dates overlap each other during these periods. The earlier you start to prepare the required documents, the less you will stress yourself and become prone to mistakes. From my experience, I can tell you that things do not always go as you planned.

The application is done online. Every university has its application form the applicants apply through. There is no general application form, where you add your documents once and then set the universities the applicant wants his or her documents to be sent as found in some countries such as Germany. The application forms resemble each other and are not difficult to navigate through. Many universities provide documents on their application sides, where a detailed template of the application procedure is shown with several pictures. Almost all application templates are in English. The online application itself does not take much time. It can be done in less than 20-30 minutes. Just keep in mind that most of the time only specific file types are allowed like pdf and the file should not exceed a specific size, which is shown after you have tried to upload a larger-sized file than allowed. Most of the time the size limit of a particular file is set to 2MB.

There are online tools for editing your files like converting their types and adjusting their sizes. One example I used is https://smallpdf.com/ .

Almost all universities require a varying application fee, which was 150 tl / 30 euros / 30 dollars last year for my university. The application fee can be paid through a foreign bank account or a Turkish bank abroad. The bank receipt has to be uploaded within the application form. Someone may think that this can be fade out, which is not the case and would waste the time you have to spend on the purchase of the documents. Based on my experience I can say that the fees are not that high compared to other foreign universities I have applied for.

There is a document called a certificate of equivalence. This is most of the time not required during the application but is essential after you got accepted and enroll for your degree course. When I have applied for my university, a certificate of equivalence was not listed on the webpage under requirements. Still, I tried to get this to increase my chance for one of the 40 contingents for the English medicine degree program. Therefore I called the Turkish consulate in the nearby city and asked for more information. We agreed to an appointment and I went there. It did not take much time and the employee put a little red stamp on my high school, which means that my high school degree in Germany is equal to the particular high school degree in Turkey that is required to be enrolled in the medical degree program. I have also suggested this certificate of equivalence to the foreign student I have done the application for. He has undergone the same procedure and got finally accepted too. In general, I emphasize every applicant builds up the most complete and perfect application. Why? Imagine you are applying for one of the most desired course programs in the world, maybe “the” most desired course programs. The universities are receiving hundreds of applications. As you could guess there are quite many students with very good marks, who could easily be accepted. Furthermore, I think that the completeness of the documents plays an important role in the evaluation. I would personally choose a complete application over an incomplete one with better exam results since a complete application emphasizes more validity and seriousness.

Costs:

Another aspect many people are uncertain about when choosing the location is the university fees.

Here is a list of known universities and their current(2020/2021) Tuition fees for the medical degree program:

University Varna, Bulgaria – 8.000,00 euro per year

Universiy Sofia, Bulgaria – 8.000,00 euro per year

University Szeged, Hungary – 15.200,00 euro per year/ first year (14600,00 euro in the next years)

Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, Poland – 10.500,00 euro per year

Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University, Turkey – 50.000,00 tl/ 5880,00 euro per year (8.5 tl for 1 euro)

Ankara University, Turkey – 45.000,00 tl/ 5.300,00 euro per year (8.5 tl for 1 euro)

Hacettepe University – 46.632,00 tl/ 4.500,00 euro per year(8.5 tl for 1 euro)



Baskent Üniversity, Ankara 85.000,00 tl/ 10.000,00 euro

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As seen in the table above the tuition fees for most of the Turkish universities are nearly 40% lesser than the cheapest universities found in East Europe. This difference is not due to the cheapness of Turkey, rather it is a result of the large currency exchange rate. Let us take an example from the table above. According to my researches done on the internet, the average tuition fee for the medical course program in Turkey is around 45000 TL respectively 5295 Euro at an exchange rate of 8,5 tl per 1 euro (February 2021). Regarding the net minimum wage of 2.825,00 tl per month/ 33.900,00 tl per year in Turkey corresponding to 333 Euro per month/ 39.98,00 Euro per year, more than an annual income is required to only pay for the tuition fee. This is expensive considering that additional costs like accommodation, pocket money, and several subjects of charge are not included. The point I want to mention here is that the prices are not cheap due to a supposed low quality of life or education, instead, it is an outcome of the high value of the foreign currencies comparing to the small value of the Turkish Lira. These financial aspects are also considered by middle-income families found in the Western developed countries such as Germany as in my case.

The people I had met in Germany, who were studying or planning to study medicine in East Europe had one thing in common, which was their belonging to a high-income family. Their parents are mostly doctors and want to inherit their profession as well as their clinics to the next generations. This does not always mean that their parents were filthy rich. They have high expenditures due to their strive to enable their children a qualitative education. Even for a chief doctor in Germany with an over-average salary, it is difficult to cover the costs of 3 children studying medicine in Bulgaria.