Of the 2,425,627 candidates who applied for the 2026-YKS, 2,255,076 actually sat the TYT session, and ÖSYM released the results on July 21, 2026. A three-decade habit repeated itself right on schedule: the exam ends, and within days the real decision begins. 2026 YKS preferences opened on Wednesday, July 29, 2026, and the window to build, rank and revise a list through the Candidate Operations System (Aday İşlemleri Sistemi, AİS) runs until August 10 at 23:59. Twelve days will decide where a year of studying leads — and most candidates, true to form, will leave the decision to the final seventy-two hours.
What follows walks through how the AİS preference screen actually works, how many choices you get, the logic for ordering a list, and what's left if the first placement round doesn't work out — all built on ÖSYM's own calendar and the current 2026-YKS guide.
- 2026 YKS Preference Calendar: When It Opens and Closes
- Entering the AİS Preference Screen, Step by Step
- How Many Choices Do You Get, and Does It Cost Anything?
- Score or Success Ranking: How to Order the List
- Details That Change a List and Get Overlooked
- When Results Come Out, and What Happens Without a Placement
- Frequently Asked Questions
2026 YKS Preference Calendar: When It Opens and Closes
ÖSYM President Prof. Dr. Ali Ersoy confirmed the schedule that governs this year's cycle: university preferences run from July 29 through August 10, 2026. The 2026-YKS Higher Education Programs and Quotas Guide — the document every choice is actually made from — went live on ÖSYM's official site on July 16, 2026, days ahead of the results themselves. It lists each program's quota, special conditions, mode of instruction, and the success rankings that filled it in previous years.
Missing the 23:59 cutoff on August 10 is not a mistake you get to undo. The system locks the list the instant the clock turns, and from that second on, the only route back in is whichever additional placement round ÖSYM decides to open.
Entering the AİS Preference Screen, Step by Step
Everything runs online through ais.osym.gov.tr. There is no in-person or postal option for filing a preference list, and there never has been.
Step 1: Log into AİS with your national ID number and ÖSYM password; a forgotten password can be reset through e-Government (e-Devlet) verification inside the same portal.
Step 2: Open the "2026-YKS Preference Procedures" menu and review the guide and quota tables before touching the list itself.
Step 3: Add program codes one by one, or pull them in directly from YÖK Atlas's Preference Wizard (Tercih Sihirbazı) rather than retyping them.
Step 4: Before confirming the order, pull up the preference notification form and check it line by line — this is the document ÖSYM actually processes.
Step 5: Even after confirming, you can go back and reorder the list right up to August 10 at 23:59; every new save simply overwrites the previous version.
The most common error among candidates who type codes by hand is confusing two similarly named departments at different faculties. Pulling the code from AİS's own search field instead of copying it out of the printed guide removes most of that risk.
How Many Choices Do You Get, and Does It Cost Anything?
A 2026 candidate can list anywhere from 1 to 24 higher education programs. Associate degree and bachelor's degree programs sit on the same list, in whatever order you choose — nothing forces you to fill all 24 lines, though leaving the list too short narrows the odds of landing anywhere at all.
The main preference period costs nothing. A fee only appears in the additional placement round, open to candidates who weren't placed in any program or who were placed but never registered; ÖSYM sets that fee fresh each year, and in 2025 it stood at 130 TRY. The 2026 figure will be announced alongside the additional placement calendar itself.
Score or Success Ranking: How to Order the List
Raw scores move with the exam's difficulty from one year to the next; a score that got someone into a program in 2023 can fall short of the same program in 2024, purely because that year's paper ran easier or harder. Success ranking measures something steadier — where a candidate stands against everyone else who sat the same exam that year — which is why counselors treat it as the number that actually travels across years. Look at where a program's ranking has landed historically, not at last year's cutoff score.
Üsküdar University's Özgür Akoğlan, a specialist psychological counselor who reviews these lists every August, put it plainly after this year's results: "the most critical indicator in university preferences is the success ranking," not the raw number on the results page. YÖK Atlas's Preference Wizard is the free tool built for exactly this comparison — enter your ranking, filter by city, institution type (state or foundation), mode of study, and scholarship rate, and it returns a realistic shortlist. Guidance counselors generally recommend layering that shortlist: ambitious programs near the top of the list, realistic matches near your own ranking in the middle, and a genuine safety option lower down. Skipping the department itself and choosing on university name alone remains the single most repeated mistake of the whole period.
Details That Change a List and Get Overlooked
Score and ranking aren't the only variables sitting inside the guide. Scholarship percentage, language of instruction, accreditation status, and quota size are all listed program by program, and the gap between two branches of the same faculty can be sharper than it looks. Galatasaray University's Faculty of Law, for instance, has a French-language track that filled last cycle at a score of 502 and a success ranking of 426th — figures that sat noticeably apart from the university's Turkish-language law track in the same guide.
Some programs carry conditions that never show up in a quota number. Piloting, Aircraft Maintenance and Repair, and Civil Defense and Firefighting programs, among others, apply an age limit that excludes female candidates who have turned 34 — a restriction spelled out in the guide's "special conditions" column, easy to miss, and hard to fix once a candidate has already been placed and shows up to register. ÖSYM also issues updates to quotas and program listings through official announcements during the window itself, which is the practical reason for rereading the current guide right before locking in a final order rather than trusting an earlier read-through.
When Results Come Out, and What Happens Without a Placement
Once the preference window shuts on August 10, ÖSYM begins processing the lists against quotas. Based on the pattern of previous cycles, placement results tend to land somewhere between mid-August and the final week of the month; the exact date is announced separately once the preference process itself has wrapped up.
A candidate who isn't placed anywhere, or who's placed but never registers, isn't out of options. ÖSYM opens an additional placement (ek yerleştirme) round specifically for quotas left empty after the first pass — whether they were never filled to begin with or vacated by no-shows. Only programs still open after central placement appear in that second list, so not every empty-looking seat resurfaces there. Score and success ranking remain the deciding factors the second time around as well.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did 2026 YKS preferences open, and when do they close?
The 2026 YKS preference period opened on Wednesday, July 29, 2026, and closes on August 10, 2026, at 23:59. Candidates can revise their list as many times as they like until that moment.
How many program choices can you list on the YKS preference form?
Candidates may list a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 24 higher education programs. Associate and bachelor's degree programs can be mixed freely on the same list, and filling all 24 slots is not required.
Is there a fee for submitting YKS preferences?
The main preference period is free of charge. Only the additional placement round, open to candidates who were not placed anywhere, carries a fee set annually by ÖSYM; it was 130 TRY in 2025.
Should a preference list be built around raw score or success ranking?
Success ranking is the more reliable measure because raw scores shift each year with exam difficulty. A program's ranking history, not last year's cutoff score, should guide the list.
What happens if a candidate is not placed in any program?
ÖSYM opens an additional placement round for quotas left empty after the first placement or vacated by candidates who never registered. Only programs still unfilled after central placement appear in that second round.
You can still reorder the list after confirming it, right up until 23:59 on August 10 — so open AİS today, pull your success ranking from YÖK Atlas, and build a first draft rather than a final one. Revisit it over the coming days instead of writing it once and closing the tab.