About Bilkent University

Bilkent University is a private university located in Ankara, Turkey. It was founded by Prof. İhsan Doğramacı in 1984, with the aim of creating a center of excellence in higher education and research. The founder, himself an academic, had earlier contributed to the establishment of numerous public institutions of higher learning and served as rector of Ankara University, as chairman of the Board of Trustees of Middle East Technical University and as the founder and first rector of Hacettepe University.

Bilkent is the first non-profit private university to be established in Turkey. Bilkent University admitted its first students in 1986. Currently there are over 12,000 students in ten faculties and three graduate schools. Among them are international students and exchange students from 60 countries. Around 64% of the student body benefit from a variety of scholarships.

The university offers 33 undergraduate majors, together with 32 graduate programs spanning 22 different fields. The faculty is composed of academic staff from over 37 different countries. Most of them were working in prominent universities in North America and Europe when they received offers from Bilkent University. According to ISI Citation Indexes, Bilkent consistently ranks highly among universities in Turkey in the number of published papers per faculty member.

With world-renowned scholars among its faculty and top-notch facilities throughout its campus, Bilkent continues to attract many of Turkey’s brightest students; there currently exist 55,000 alumni pursuing successful careers in five continents.