Student Selection and Placement System

Student Selection and Placement System (Turkish: Öğrenci Seçme ve Yerleştirme Sistemi, ÖSYS) or Higher Education Examination-Undergraduate Placement Examination (Turkish: Yükseköğretime Geçis Sınavı-Lisans Yerleştirme Sınavı, YGS-LYS), formerly Student Selection Examination, (Turkish: Öğrenci Seçme Sınavı, ÖSS), is a standardized test for the admission to higher education in Turkey administered by ÖSYM. Within the Turkish education system, the only way to enter a university is through this exam. 1,692,000 high school graduates took the exam in 2011 and 2,255,386 in 2016. It is a multiple choice exam (5 options).

ÖSS was first applied in the late 1960s. Before then each university selected their students via their own criteria. However, with the increasing number of youth and the overloaded applications, the universities gathered and founded "Yüksekögretim Kurulu", the Higher Education Council, and a subdivision named ÖSYM, "Student Selection and Placement Center", which began to operate the central ÖSS, Student Selection Examination.

In 1980 the number of the exams were increased to two, namely the ÖSS and ÖYS. If a student did not achieve the specified grade in ÖSS, he or she did not have the right to enter ÖYS, and thus, lost his or her chance to be accepted to a university. ÖSS consisted of questions about the ninth grade curriculum, and ÖYS was a test on the tenth and eleventh grade curriculum. ÖSS eliminated the students on the basis of the grade they had received in the exam, and ÖYS placed the students to the universities they wanted. This system continued until 1999 when ÖYS was dropped and the system reverted to the single ÖSS exam, with the same format and same questions.

The ÖSS exam was a 180-minute exam with 180 questions testing students' analytical thinking and problem-solving abilities, as well as knowledge of the high school curriculum. Each student was expected to answer the entirety of questions, which spanned the following subject areas: mathematics, geometry, physics, chemistry, biology, Turkish language, history, geography and philosophy.

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