Nearly 2.5 million candidates sat the 2026 Yükseköğretim Kurumları Sınavı, Turkey's national university entrance exam, and almost all of them faced the same problem within days of getting their score: which fifty programs go on the ranked list. That is the exact gap Tercih Tanıtım Days — university preference promotion days, known in Turkish as Tercih Tanıtım Günleri — are built to close.
These campus events used to be a marketing trick a handful of private universities ran. They are now a nationwide fixture, and the 2026 season showed just how large the operation has grown. This guide walks through when the days started, how the biggest programs compared city by city, and what a family should actually do once they walk onto a campus.
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What Tercih Tanıtım Days Are, and Why They Matter Now
A Tercih Tanıtım Day is a scheduled window when a university opens its campus specifically to candidates weighing where to rank it on their preference list. Faculty walk visitors through labs and studios. Preference advisors sit down with families and a printed program guide. It is part open house, part one-on-one consulting session.
The format was not always this common. One long-running community thread on Ekşi Sözlük describes it plainly: the practice "önceleri daha çok özel üniversitelerin bir nevi müşteri toplamak için çılgın attıkları bir uygulamaydı" — originally something private universities ran almost frantically to pull in enrollments.
That has changed. Public universities now run their own editions, sometimes decades old. Ankara University hosted its 20th Tanıtım ve Tercih Günleri on July 30-31, 2026, at the Beşevler campus — two decades of the same institution running the same open-house format, according to its faculty announcement.
The 2026 Calendar: When Campuses Opened Their Doors
Dates were not identical, but a pattern held across the country. Most schools opened between mid-July and mid-August, timed to the window between YKS results and the preference deadline.
Istanbul Technical University: July 24 – August 3, daily from 10:00 to 16:00, under the theme "Etki Oluştur, İz Bırak," per the university's own news release.
İstanbul Gelişim University: July 21 – August 11, with one-on-one sessions run by dedicated tercih advisors.
Bahçeşehir University: July 21 – August 13, the longest single-campus run found in this research.
Beykoz University: July 16 – August 11, daily 09:00-18:00 at the Kavacık campus, with extra weekend dates layered on top of the weekday schedule.
İbn Haldun University: July 28 – August 10 at the Başakşehir campus.
Ankara University: a tighter two-day window, July 30-31.
Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir: a two-day Tanıtım ve Tercih Günleri combining in-person stands with a parallel online track.
Every one of those windows sat inside the same national deadline: preferences were submitted through ÖSYM's ais.osym.gov.tr portal from August 1 to August 13, 2026.
Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir: How the Big Events Compared
Istanbul ran the longest and most crowded calendar, simply because it hosts the most universities competing for the same pool of candidates. Ankara took a different approach: instead of dozens of separate campus events, the city consolidated attention into large joint fairs.
Ankara Büyükşehir Belediyesi's own Üniversite Tanıtım Günleri drew more than 10,000 students over two days, with over 50 universities setting up stands, according to the municipality's Youth and Sports Services head, reported on ankara.bel.tr. A later fifth edition of the same fair brought together representatives from 43 universities from across the country in one venue.
Izmir's approach leaned toward hybrid delivery. Dokuz Eylül University's event ran both formats at once rather than choosing between a physical fair and an online session, letting families outside the region join without traveling.
From Exam Results to Registration: Where the Days Fit
Tercih Tanıtım Days are not a standalone event. They sit in a tight sequence that starts weeks earlier and ends with a student walking into a lecture hall in September.
YKS exam: held in June 2026, with more than 2.5 million candidates sitting the TYT, AYT and YDT sessions.
Results and rankings published: triggering a rush of campus visits within days.
Kılavuz release: ÖSYM published its Yükseköğretim Programları ve Kontenjanları Kılavuzu — the guide listing every program and quota — on July 30-31, 2026.
Tercih Tanıtım Days: running in overlapping windows from mid-July through mid-August, as families cross-check the guide against what they saw on campus.
Preference submission: August 1-13, through ÖSYM's portal or mobile app.
Placement results: expected in the August 20-25 window, based on prior-year timing patterns cited by Kariyer.net's university guide.
Registration: September 1-5, 2026, directly at each placed university.
Miss the campus events and a candidate is not locked out — the kılavuz has every data point on paper. What is lost is the chance to ask a lab instructor a question a PDF cannot answer.
What Actually Happens on Campus, and Online
Strip away the branding and most Tercih Tanıtım Days share the same core stops. A welcome desk hands out the program catalog. Department tables staff working academics rather than admissions marketers. A campus tour covers dormitories, libraries and social spaces, because housing quality shapes a student's daily life as much as the curriculum does.
Haliç University's own advice page for candidates puts it directly: attending "üniversite hayatının nasıl geçeceği konusunda daha net bir fikir verir" — it gives a clearer sense of what daily student life will actually look like, something a brochure cannot convey.
Scholarship consultations run alongside academic ones at nearly every stop. Given how tuition-sensitive private university choices are, a scholarship desk often draws a longer queue than the engineering faculty's table.
AI Advisors and Live Streams Are Changing the Season
The 2026 season showed a shift most competing coverage skipped entirely: preference advice is going digital, not just informational but interactive. İstanbul Gelişim University built a tool it calls Tercih Robotu — a digital assistant that gives candidates instant, score-based guidance alongside its in-person advisors.
Kariyer.net ran a parallel national track under its own "Tercih Günleri" brand: fully online sessions on set dates in late July, pairing industry professionals with current university students so candidates could ask career-outcome questions no campus tour covers. That online layer matters most for families in smaller towns who cannot afford a multi-city campus circuit in the two weeks before the deadline.
None of this replaces the walk-through of a studio or a lab. It does mean a candidate in a village three hours from the nearest major city gets a version of the same access as one in Kadıköy.
How to Get the Most Out of a Visit
A campus visit wastes time without preparation. A short list of habits separates a useful trip from a wasted afternoon.
Bring the kılavuz page for that program printed or saved offline, with quota and prior-year cutoff score already circled.
Ask about placement outcomes, not brochure language — where recent graduates from that specific department actually work.
Visit the dorm, not just the lecture hall. Housing quality and cost affect four years of daily life.
Talk to a current student without staff nearby. Most tanıtım days station student ambassadors exactly for this.
Write the score cutoff, not just the impression. A great table conversation means nothing if the ranking is out of reach.
One thing rarely mentioned on university press pages: bring a second family member if possible. Two people notice different things during a two-hour campus walk, and comparing notes that evening tends to surface questions neither one thought to ask on the spot.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly are Tercih Tanıtım Days?
They are campus open days Turkish universities run right after YKS results, where candidates meet faculty and preference advisors before submitting their program rankings.
When do Tercih Tanıtım Days happen every year?
They cluster in the two to three weeks after YKS results are announced. In 2026 most campuses ran events between mid-July and mid-August, ahead of the August 1-13 preference window.
Do I need my YKS score before attending?
No. Many students visit before results appear to research programs, then return or book a second session once their score and ranking are confirmed.
Are these events only for private universities?
No. State universities including Ankara University and Dokuz Eylül University now run multi-day tanıtım programs, and municipalities such as Ankara Büyükşehir Belediyesi host multi-university fairs.
Can I take part without traveling to the campus?
Yes. Most universities pair their in-person schedule with live-streamed sessions, and platforms like Kariyer.net run fully online preference days with recorded talks.
The 2026 season made three things clear. Tercih Tanıtım Days have outgrown their private-university origins and now run at nearly every public institution, too. Cities are consolidating small campus events into large joint fairs rather than leaving families to chase dozens of separate schedules. Digital tools — AI advisors, live-streamed panels — now reach students the campus circuit never could.
None of that replaces walking a hallway, sitting in an empty lecture seat, and asking a professor a question in person. If your preference deadline is close, check your target university's own tercih calendar this week and book at least one campus visit before the ais.osym.gov.tr window closes.