Turkey's Best Schools 2026

Turkey's most prestigious secondary schools have a genuinely unusual shared history: many of the country's top institutions, French-medium Galatasaray, American-founded Robert College, German-track Istanbul Erkek Lisesi, trace their origins to the 19th century, when foreign governments and communities established schools in Istanbul that have since evolved into some of the most selective public and private institutions in the country. Entry into Turkey's elite public high schools runs through the LGS, the national high school entrance exam taken at the end of middle school, and the Ministry of Education publishes official annual data on which schools admit students with the highest LGS scores, giving families genuinely verifiable ranking information.

This ranking is merit-based across Turkey's most competitive LGS-admission public schools and the country's strongest private American, French, and IB institutions, rather than filtered to one system alone.

How Turkey's School System Actually Works

Turkish students sit the LGS around age 14 to gain entry into high school, with the most selective public schools, known as Anatolian High Schools and Science High Schools, or fen liseleri, admitting only students in the top fraction of a percent nationally. After high school, university admission runs through the separate YKS exam. A distinctive feature of Istanbul's elite public tier is genuine language specialisation: several top schools teach primarily in German or French rather than English, a legacy of 19th-century educational missions that has persisted for well over a century.

Running alongside this public system is a cluster of century-old private schools, several originally founded by American missionaries, that now blend a US-style curriculum with the Turkish national diploma, and in some cases the IB Diploma as well. Families weighing that international option against Turkey's national exam system may find our IB vs Cambridge comparison guide useful background, even though Cambridge itself has a smaller footprint in Turkey than in some other markets in this series.

1. Istanbul Erkek Lisesi

Istanbul Erkek Lisesi topped the 2025 LGS rankings as the highest-scoring high school in the country, filling all 150 of its available places with students who achieved a perfect 500 out of 500 on the entrance exam, displacing the previous year's leader, Galatasaray Lisesi. The school's German-language preparatory programme is a significant part of its appeal, and its principal has noted a recent surge in demand for German-medium education specifically because German universities accept students more readily once they've reached C1 language proficiency. Historic alumnus Fuat Köprülü, a major figure in Turkish history, is among many notable names to have passed through the school.

2. Galatasaray Lisesi

Galatasaray is the oldest high school in Turkey, founded in 1481 as the Galata Sarayı Enderun Mektebi under Sultan Bayezid II, and it delivers a Turkish-French bilingual curriculum leading to both a Turkish diploma and French Baccalauréat equivalency. Located in Beyoğlu, it posted a 2025 LGS cutoff of approximately 495, placing second nationally that year after topping the rankings the previous year. Graduates are placed primarily at French universities, including Sciences Po and École Polytechnique, giving Galatasaray a genuinely distinctive Francophone pathway among Turkey's elite schools. For families researching what actually separates a school performing at this level from a strong national average, our piece on what drives strong exam outcomes covers similar underlying factors around sustained institutional prestige.

3. Kabataş Erkek Lisesi

Kabataş, founded in 1908 in the Kabataş district before moving to its current Beşiktaş location in 1928-29, posted a 2025 LGS cutoff of around 494.81, placing it consistently among the top three or four schools in the country year after year. It offers both German and English preparatory programmes, and its principal has highlighted the school's high YKS university-entrance success alongside its long history and the internationally recognised German DSD Language Diploma it offers. Its Bosphorus-facing campus and near-century-long academic reputation place it firmly alongside Galatasaray and Istanbul Erkek Lisesi at the very top of Turkey's public school system.

4. Robert College

Robert College, founded in 1863 in the Bebek neighbourhood, is the oldest continuously operating American school outside the United States, and admission is limited to students scoring within the top 0.2% nationally on the high school entrance exam. It offers 20 Advanced Placement courses, with 98% of students scoring 3 or above on AP exams, alongside the Turkish Lise Diploması, giving graduates dual academic credentials. Notable alumni include Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, reflecting more than 160 years of producing some of the country's most influential figures.

5. Ankara Fen Lisesi

Ankara Fen Lisesi is the strongest science-specialist high school outside Istanbul, posting a 2025 LGS cutoff of 494.52, placing it fourth nationally that year and the clear leader among Turkey's capital-city schools. As a dedicated fen lisesi, or science high school, it selects students specifically for demonstrated mathematics and science aptitude, giving Ankara families an elite academic option without needing to relocate to Istanbul.

6. Üsküdar American Academy

Üsküdar American Academy, founded in 1876, is known for a holistic education balancing rigorous academics with genuine personal development, located in the Üsküdar district on Istanbul's Asian side. Its long history and well-respected reputation place it firmly among Istanbul's top-tier private schools, offering families an American-curriculum alternative to Robert College with a similarly deep institutional legacy.

7. American Collegiate Institute (ACI), Izmir

ACI, founded in 1878, is Izmir's oldest private high school and offers a genuinely dual pathway: a US-based curriculum with Advanced Placement courses alongside the full IB Diploma Programme, with boarding facilities available for both girls and boys. Its graduates are regularly accepted into top universities worldwide, giving families in Izmir, Turkey's third-largest city, an elite option without needing to relocate to Istanbul or Ankara. Families weighing this dual AP-and-IB structure may find our curriculum comparison guide useful groundwork.

8. TED Ankara College Foundation High School

TED Ankara College is the strongest single Turkish school for US university placement outside Istanbul, giving Ankara-based families access to the kind of American university pipeline that Istanbul's Robert College and Üsküdar American Academy are best known for. Its consistent placement record reflects a genuinely national spread of Turkey's strongest international-university-track schools, rather than concentration in Istanbul alone.

9. MEF International School

MEF International School runs a full IB Diploma programme in Istanbul and has built a growing top-50 US university placement record over the past decade, giving families a genuinely modern IB alternative to Turkey's older, more established American-curriculum schools. Its rising trajectory makes it one of the clearer IB-specific options for Istanbul families who want that pathway specifically rather than the AP-heavy model followed at Robert College and similar institutions.

10. TAC Tarsus American College

Tarsus American College, based in Mersin Province, runs an AP-heavy curriculum with a particular strength in STEM applicants, producing a growing record of top-30 US university placements. For families based in southern Turkey specifically, TAC offers an American-curriculum pathway without requiring relocation to Istanbul, Ankara, or Izmir, extending Turkey's strong American-school tradition into a genuinely different region of the country.

What This List Reveals: A Century of Foreign-Language Specialisation

The clearest pattern across Turkey's elite public school tier is deep, decades-old language specialisation tied to specific foreign educational traditions: German at Istanbul Erkek Lisesi and Kabataş, French at Galatasaray, and English or American-style instruction at Robert College and its private-school peers. That's a genuinely distinctive structure compared to the university-affiliation model we found researching China's elite schools or the gifted-school specialisation we saw in Vietnam; in Turkey, a school's foreign-language tradition, often stretching back over a century, remains the single strongest signal of its academic tier.

LGS Track, AP, or IB: What the Choice Actually Means

For families planning to remain in Turkey long-term, the LGS-track public Anatolian and science high schools, followed by the YKS university exam, remain the most direct and cost-effective route into Turkey's top universities, entirely tuition-free. For families targeting international university study, Robert College and Üsküdar American Academy's AP-heavy American curricula suit US-bound students specifically, while ACI Izmir and MEF International School's IB Diploma programmes offer broader global portability. Families still weighing this decision can work through the specifics in our Cambridge IGCSE parent guide, since the underlying trade-offs between a national exam track and an international qualification apply broadly regardless of country.

Supporting Students Across Turkey's School System

Whether your child is preparing for the LGS or YKS at a top Anatolian high school, working through AP coursework at Robert College or Üsküdar American Academy, or pursuing the IB Diploma at ACI Izmir or MEF International School, focused subject-specific tutoring can make a genuine difference, particularly given how selective admission to Turkey's top schools and universities has become. If you're unsure whether your child needs that kind of targeted support right now, our article on early warning signs is a useful starting point regardless of which system they're in.

Mathrone Academy provides one-on-one tutoring across Cambridge IGCSE and A-Level and the full IB Diploma, delivered online to students anywhere in the world, including international families at Turkey's IB schools.

Get matched with a tutor:
WhatsApp: +250 786 684 285
Email: [email protected]