Transferring Mid-Degree to a Turkish Private University: How Yatay Geçiş Works

Short answer: if you're already enrolled at a university, you don't have to start over from year one to move to a Turkish private university. The official route is called yatay geçiş, and it's defined by YÖK, Turkey's Council of Higher Education: your current university and program need to be YÖK-recognized, transfers generally open from the second year onward (not the first term, not the final year), and how many of your completed credits carry over is decided by the receiving faculty's committee after you enroll — not before. Applying through Homa Study is free for the student; you pay tuition directly to the university, the same as with a fresh application.

Most of what's written about applying to Turkish private universities assumes you haven't enrolled anywhere yet. But a real share of the students and parents we hear from don't fit that assumption — they're a year or two into a degree, in Iran or elsewhere, and want to change course without losing that time. This is written for that situation specifically.

Yatay geçiş: the official route between universities

Transferring between universities in Turkey isn't an informal arrangement — it runs under a regulation that YÖK, the body that oversees every university in the country, has defined. YÖK's own page lists it under "Transfer, Double Major, Minor Programs and Inter-Institutional Credit Transfer at the Associate and Bachelor's Level."

What sets this route apart from a fresh application is simple: you're not building a file from zero — you're carrying an existing academic record into a new university. The baseline requirement is that the university and program you're currently enrolled in are recognized by YÖK and authorized to award an associate's or bachelor's degree.

When you can transfer — and when you can't

The common pattern at private universities in Turkey is that transfers open from the second year onward. The reason is straightforward: universities generally don't take transfer students in the very first term of a new enrollment, or in a student's final graduating year.

In practice, that means if you enrolled this year, this route is probably not open to you yet — and if you're in your last year, finishing where you are usually makes more sense than switching at this stage. For a student one to three years into a program, the window is normally open, but exactly when applications are accepted — start of each semester, or only the start of the academic year — varies by university, and that's something we check directly for your target school.

How your completed credits get evaluated

This is where most of the confusion happens, so it's worth being precise: the decision on how many credits and terms from your previous study carry over is normally made after you register, not before.

Bahçeşehir University (BAU) lays this out on its own admissions page: a transfer applicant first completes the standard admission process like any other applicant and becomes a registered student, then submits a "Credit Transfer" request through the student portal. The departmental course-recognition committee compares each course's content, local credit value, and ECTS value against the target program, and the academic unit's board finalizes the decision. BAU itself states it cannot say in advance what percentage of credits will transfer — that's decided course by course, after formal review.

The most useful thing you can do before that stage is have your official transcript and the syllabus for every course you've completed ready. Those syllabi are exactly what the committee compares against the target curriculum, and missing them is a common source of delay — not rejection.

Which programs commonly sit outside this route

Not every program treats a transfer applicant the same way as a first-time one. Bahçeşehir University states on its own page that it does not accept transfer students into Medicine, Dentistry, or Pharmacy — those are open only through standard freshman admission. That restriction is specific to BAU, not a rule we're extending to every partner university, but it's a useful reminder not to assume a program open to fresh applicants is automatically open to transfers. High-demand programs also tend to run a narrower transfer quota than their regular intake.

What you need to start a review

A first review of a transfer file typically needs: an official transcript from your current university with certified translation, the syllabus for each course you've completed, proof of active enrollment or your most recent academic status, a valid passport copy, and — for English-taught programs — an English proficiency document. If your existing academic documents need certified translation or legalization, that process is the same one covered in document legalization for Turkey.

Gathering course syllabi is the one part of a transfer file that a fresh application doesn't need — start collecting them early so a credit-recognition review isn't held up waiting on paperwork.

A note for parents: why this differs from a fresh application

If your child is already enrolled somewhere else, it's reasonable to worry about two things: how much time gets lost, and whether this path is really what it claims to be. The honest answer is that the exact number of credits and entry year can't be confirmed before registration, because that decision sits with the receiving university's committee, not with us. What is clear from the outset is that this is a formal, regulated path — governed by the same YÖK regulation every Turkish university operates under — and that reviewing the file and submitting the application through Homa Study costs the student nothing. Just like the standard offer-letter path from three universities, you pay tuition directly into the university's own account.

If you're not sure whether a transfer is the right move, or whether starting fresh through admission without the YÖS exam makes more sense, raise it in a free consultation — we lay out both paths before you decide. The full list of partner universities and their published programs is also available on the universities page.