YTB chooses your degree, not you
The most unusual thing about this scholarship is who chooses your degree. YTB places you into a university and department itself, rather than you arranging your own admission first. What you actually control is the list of preferences: the application lets you name up to 12 different programme and university combinations, ranked in the order you want them. Choose that list carefully. YTB places you against your own ranking, and a preference you added carelessly can be the one you get.
The application process, step by step
The application itself runs through YTB’s own online portal, not through any individual university. You create an account, enter your personal, academic and professional details, and upload supporting documents: academic transcripts, a copy of your passport, a CV and a motivation letter, with a research proposal or letters of recommendation added for graduate and doctoral applications. Submitting closes with a confirmation email carrying a reference number, which is the only proof you have that the application went through. Shortlisted candidates are then invited to an interview before YTB makes its final placement decisions, so a strong motivation letter gets you to the interview, it does not replace it.
A genuinely comprehensive award
The award is comprehensive on its own terms: tuition, a monthly stipend that scales with degree level, accommodation, a return flight, health insurance and a year of Turkish language instruction for anyone who does not already hold a C1 certificate. The site’s own description of the programme as fully funded holds up against that list, since tuition, living costs and travel are all covered.
Hard cutoffs, not soft preferences
Eligibility has hard cutoffs rather than soft preferences. Age limits are enforced by level: under 21 for associate and bachelor’s applicants, under 30 for master’s, under 35 for PhD, and under 50 for the separate Research Scholarship. Minimum academic achievement is set at 70% for associate and bachelor’s candidates, 75% for graduate candidates, and 90% for Health Sciences fields such as medicine, dentistry and pharmacy. You also need to have graduated, or be graduating by the end of the current academic year, and you cannot already be enrolled in a Turkish university programme at the level you are applying for.
The Research Scholarship runs on a rolling quarterly cycle unlike the other tracks
Unlike the once-a-year General Application Period, the separate Research Scholarship isn’t a once-a-year opportunity at all: it runs four distinct application windows across the calendar year (roughly January-March, April-June, July-September, and October-December), each with its own evaluation and results announcement a month or so later. If the main January-February window has already closed for the year, the Research Scholarship route may still have an open or upcoming period worth checking.
The published calendar repeats every year without naming which year it describes
The calendar published on the official site repeats every year without naming which year it describes, which makes it easy to mistake a template for a live deadline. The General Application Period runs January to February in a typical year, but nothing confirms that pattern is what will happen next. Check the calendar page directly, close to when you plan to apply, rather than working backward from these dates.