How do I choose my twelve preferences?

This page is the focused version of the application's biggest structural question. The full guide — the letter, the uploads, the submission date — lives in our pillar guide to the scholarship application, and it is worth reading whole. What follows is the twelve preferences on their own: the method, the alignment rules, and what to do tonight.

01 · The method

Twelve slots, three jobs

Twelve preferences are not a wishlist. They are a strategy — and most people fill them in like a wishlist, which is how twelve slots become one city and no reasons. Divide the twelve into three blocks, and give each block one job.

The vocabulary needs one boundary stated plainly, because it is borrowed from admissions counselling: reach, target and safety describe fit, never likelihood. No university on this page is a safety because it seems easier to get into — that framing is an odds claim, odds are not ours to state, and the structure breaks the moment it implies one. What makes a slot right is alignment: the field, the department's actual work, and your record. We do not name universities for any block — the list is yours to build, and the building is the point.

02 · The two alignment rules

One field, a few cities

Field alignment: keep all twelve slots inside your field. A scattered list — engineering here, business there, something unrelated in between — reads as unserious, because it is. The evaluator is looking for a person who knows what they want; twelve slots in one field is the simplest proof that there is one.

Should I only pick Istanbul and Ankara?

Choose by programme, not by city name. Everyone writes Istanbul, which is why Istanbul-only is the weakest strategy, not the strongest — and smaller cities cost meaningfully less to live in. No city is improved or disparaged here, and no likelihood is stated about any of them.

How many cities should my list cover?

Two or three, each with a reason you can write down — not the whole country. Clusters keep travel, cost of living and daily life coherent, and a reason beside every city is what separates a structure from a scatter.

Geographic clustering: choose two or three cities, not the whole country. Clusters keep travel costs, living costs and daily life coherent — a list spread across six cities is a list that never becomes a life. Each city should have a reason beside it that you can write down: the departments there, the cost of living, the kind of city it is. Our cities guide describes them without ranking anyone.

03 · Tonight

Build the list before the portal opens

1. List departments, not universities — every department whose actual work fits your field, found through YÖK's official university search, which our recognition guide walks through step by step.
2. Sort them into three rows — reach, target, safety, by fit and your record. Four each. If a row will not fill, the field is too narrow; if it overflows, the cutting is the work.
3. Mark the cities — two or three, with a written reason beside each. Anything you cannot write a reason for does not belong on the list.
4. Bring it to the desk — the free profile review reads your marks, your field and your twelve slots together, in writing, before anything is submitted.