- Prospective students who apply for financial assistance are evaluated according to their high school grades, their national and/or international exam scores, their program choices, and other relevant academic criteria.
- Qualified applicants are offered partial or full tuition waiver scholarships. Tuition waiver scholarships are awarded at five levels, ranging from 20% to 100% in increments of 20%. Accommodation scholarships may be available for a limited number of top students who are on full tuition waiver scholarship.
- Students can benefit from tuition waiver scholarships for a maximum of 4 semesters in the English Preparatory Program and for a maximum of 10 semesters in 4-year undergraduate programs. Accommodation scholarships are provided for up to 8 semesters.
- Students on scholarship are required to take at least the minimum course load* from their curriculum specified for their major department each semester (excluding additional courses, any minor program courses, withdrawn courses**, GE100, GE251 and non-credit courses) and to maintain a minimum Annual-GPA*** of 2.00/4.00. English Preparatory Program students are required to qualify to take the ECA or PAE exam at the end of each course or pass PAE by the end of the academic year. Scholarships of students who fail to meet these conditions will be decreased one or two levels and cannot be restored even if the students improve their performance. If there are no Fall or Spring semester courses within the Annual-GPA, students with less than 2.00 are given a warning; if these students fail to meet the required conditions at the end of the following year, their scholarships will be decreased by two levels.
- Students on accommodation scholarship are required to maintain a minimum Annual-GPA of 2.50/4.00. Students who fail to meet this condition will lose their accommodation scholarship. If their Annual-GPA is less than 2.00, their scholarship will be decreased by two levels.
- Attendance to all lectures and academic activities is mandatory for all scholarship students, even if the course instructor does not take formal attendance or specify a minimum level of attendance. In case of poor attendance, scholarships may be temporarily suspended any time.
- If a scholarship student is subject to a disciplinary action, his/her current scholarship may be reduced or cancelled depending on the disciplinary offense and the sanction imposed.
- Students participated in exchange programs for one or two semesters are required to take and pass a number of courses equal to their minimum course load.
* The minimum course load depends on the department. This information can be found in SRS (https://stars.bilkent.edu.tr/srs/) under “Information Card” and “lower limit”.
** Students who are taking the minimum course load each semester may withdraw from at most one course during an academic year.
*** The Annual-GPA is calculated as a weighted average of Fall and Spring grades. The sum of the Fall and Spring semester grade points are divided by the sum of the Fall and Spring semester credits. If a course that was taken in the Fall semester is repeated in the Spring semester, then both grades are included in the Annual-GPA calculation.
Applicants and students, who previously had or already have Turkish citizenship are not eligible for international student scholarships. International applicants and students, who later obtain Turkish citizenship will lose their eligibility for international student scholarships from that date onward.
Merit Scholarship
At the end of each academic year, international students who have taken at least a minimum curriculum course load (excluding any additional courses, withdrawn courses, GE 100-250-251, non-credit courses and repeated courses in Spring, already taken in Fall semester) and attained an annual grade point average of 3.30 or above, as well as being in the top 5% of all the non-scholarship students in their program, may become eligible to receive a merit scholarship for the following academic year. To become eligible for a merit scholarship, an international student must rank at a level higher than their current partial tuition waiver scholarship level.
Depending upon a student’s ranking within the top 5% the scholarship covers tuition fees to the extent shown below:
| Rank | Percent of tuition |
| First 1% | 100% |
| Second 1% | 80% |
| Third 1% | 60% |
| Fourth 1% | 40% |
| Fifth 1% | 20% |