We are in the middle of October and ÖSYM, Turkey's national exam authority, has still not published its exam calendar for 2027. Thousands of candidates type "when is YKS 2027" into a search engine, looking for the date of Turkey's university entrance exam, and find estimates and countdown pages instead of a firm date. Let me try to separate the certain from the guessed: when the calendar can be expected, what pattern last year's calendar shows, and how to set up a study plan before the date arrives.
Has the ÖSYM 2027 exam calendar been announced?
No. As of 14 October 2026, when this article was written, there is no 2027 exam calendar on ÖSYM's official website. Dates like "YKS 2027: 19–20 June" that you see on some sites are not ÖSYM announcements; they are estimates based on the pattern of previous years. The estimates are right most years, but if the authority shifts things by even a day, your plan changes.
When was the calendar published last year?
The 2026 exam calendar appeared on ÖSYM's website on the morning of 14 November 2025. That is the most solid clue for the 2027 calendar. ÖSYM usually announces the calendar in the last quarter of the preceding year, in November or December; the "late November, early December" expectation on news sites rests on this habit. Knowing there is no official promise, we can say this much: a calendar arriving in November would not be a surprise.
What pattern did the 2026 calendar show?
There is no date for 2027, but the skeleton of the 2026 calendar offers a template. In 2026, the TYT session of YKS (the basic proficiency test) was held on 20 June, and the AYT and YDT sessions (the field proficiency test and the foreign language test) on 21 June. DGS, the exam for transferring from a two-year associate degree to a bachelor's programme, was on 19 July. KPSS, the civil service exam, had its bachelor's-level General Aptitude and General Knowledge session on 6 September and its Field Knowledge sessions on 12–13 September; the associate degree level on 4 October, the high school level on 25 October. In the autumn, YDS, the foreign language proficiency exam, falls on 22 November and the third sitting of ALES, the graduate admission exam, on 29 November.
The logic of this sequence has not changed in years: YKS on a weekend in the second half of June, DGS in July, bachelor's-level KPSS in the first half of September, the associate and high school levels in October. So a YKS 2027 candidate, even without knowing the exact date, can plan on the assumption that the exam will fall on a weekend in the second half of June. In a plan built on that assumption, only the final week shifts once the date is announced.
Which exams will be in the 2027 calendar, and which will not?
ÖSYM's annual calendar includes YKS, MSÜ (the military academy candidate exam), KPSS, ALES, YDS, e-YDS (the computer-based version of YDS), DGS, YÖKDİL (the academic foreign language exam for higher education) and exams run for specific institutions. But not every exam takes place every year. The associate degree and high school levels of KPSS are held in even-numbered years; since they took place in 2026, they will not be in the 2027 calendar, and the next exam for these levels is in 2028. Bachelor's-level KPSS, on the other hand, is held every year. EKPSS, the version taken by candidates with disabilities, is also among the exams held every two years.
This detail is decisive for high school and associate degree graduates, who often ask "is there a KPSS in 2027". A high school level candidate who did not sit the 2026 exam, or is unhappy with the score, has no chance of a new exam in 2027; the existing score will be used until 2028, or the institutions' own recruitment rounds will have to be followed. For bachelor's-level candidates, the 2027 exam will be in the calendar as usual.
How do you build a study plan before the calendar is out?
Take mid-June as your target and count backwards. For YKS, there are roughly eight months from today to the target month. Splitting that time into three parts works well: closing topic gaps until the end of December; from January to April, a period in which finishing the syllabus and solving questions run side by side; and from April until the exam, a revision period built around mock exams. For a mock exam schedule you already have a concrete tool: MEBİ, the free online study platform of MEB, the Ministry of National Education, is running 12 free YKS mock exams this year, and the first ones were held in September and October. Since the monthly dates of the remaining mocks are known, building your study plan around them gives you a natural checkpoint.
For KPSS candidates the situation is a little different. Since the bachelor's-level exam is held in September, a 2027 candidate has eleven months ahead, and that can look like too long. Starting in spring and sprinting is not how you make good use of a long stretch; starting early at a gentler pace is. Spread the bulky parts of general knowledge, such as history and geography, across the winter and keep general aptitude alive by solving questions continuously. The topic tests are a suitable starting point for establishing that rhythm.
Can you trust sites that give estimated dates?
For a rough date, yes; for making decisions, no. Most countdown pages arrive at a date by rolling forward the weekends of previous years, which is why one can say 12 June and another 19 June for the same exam. The real problem is that these pages also guess the application dates. A candidate who misses the application window has no option left but late application, and the late application fee is higher. For application dates, the only source should be the calendar ÖSYM publishes and the guide that follows it.
Where should you look first once the calendar is announced?
First at the application window for your own exam, then at the exam day, and last at the results date. Most candidates memorise the exam day and never note down the application window; yet the question that comes up most often all year is "has the application period closed". Entering the three dates into your phone's calendar with reminders on the day the calendar comes out takes a minute and can save a year.
One more thing: the calendar may also contain dates marked "to be announced". ÖSYM finalises the application period for some exams later on. When you see a line like that, following the authority's announcements without panicking is enough; the same information will also be updated in the blog section of our site.