A private full-day school in Bahçelievler, one campus in Yenibosna with a separate sports and culture complex a street away. AREL Educational Institutions started with the 1990-1991 academic year, running a preschool, primary school, middle school and college - the Anatolian high school - in which some classes are held in foreign languages; the first cohort graduated in 1994. The sports and culture complex, with 13,000 square metres of indoor space, opened in 1997. AREL Science High School was founded in 2001, enrolled its first students in 2002-2003, and is built for students who specialise in science and mathematics. The high school programme lasts five years including a preparatory year, English is taught intensively, and German and Spanish are offered as second foreign languages. The school prepares graduates for universities both in Turkey and abroad.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $8 396–14 130 a year
405 300–682 123 TRY
Programmes
IB · PYP, MYP · AP · National programme
Languages of instruction
Turkish, English
Languages taught
German, Spanish
About the fees Annual tuition for 2026-2027 is published grade by grade and stated before VAT - the school writes plus KDV after every figure and does not name the VAT rate in the price list. The range runs from the lowest threshold of the cheapest stage to the highest of the most expensive: 405,300.23 lira for grade 4 of the primary school and 682,123.23 lira for the preparatory year of the Anatolian high school and grade 9 of the science high school. For orientation on the other stages: preschool 484,434.72, grade 1 553,429.94, grade 5 410,147.54, grade 9 of the Anatolian high school 619,674.27 and grade 12 411,535.04. These are base figures with no discounts applied. Meals are not part of tuition and cost 137,200.00 lira before VAT.
Admissions The preschool takes children aged 4, 5 and 6 in order of application, with counselling specialists looking at school readiness, language development, motor skills, attention and comprehension. First grade follows the same order of application and the same readiness work; a child who finishes the school's own six-year-old group and meets the conditions has priority. Grades 2, 3 and 4 are filled within quota in order of application, after the same acquaintance work and a readiness assessment. The middle school admits into grades 5, 6, 7 and 8. High school admission runs on its own calendar built around the results of the national LGS exam.
Stages and year groups Preschool, primary school (grades 1-4), middle school (grades 5-8), the Anatolian high school and the science high school. The high school runs five years: a preparatory year plus grades 9 to 12. The preschool takes children aged 4, 5 and 6. The school does not state how many classes run in parallel or how many students sit in one class.
Address Merkez Mah. Selahattin Pınar Sk. No: 3, 34197 Yenibosna, Bahçelievler, İstanbul
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · PYP, MYP · authorised programmeCollege Board · authorised programmeThe school is listed in the IB registry under code 002601 and in the College Board AP Course Ledger for 2025-2026 under code 696356. It names its IB stages itself, with dates: AREL Middle School (grades 5-8) and AREL Anatolian High School (grades 9-10) were authorized for the IB Middle Years Programme on 13 June 2007, and AREL Primary School became an authorized IB PYP school for ages 3-12 after a successful authorization visit in 2008. AP courses run across seven academic fields: mathematics and computer science, sciences, social sciences, art, world languages and English. No Cambridge record stands behind the school in the registries, and we place no Cambridge mark: the Cambridge certificate ceremony the school reports in its news belongs to the Cambridge English language line, which is a different organization.
school is in an official registryconfirmed by a school document, by membership or by taking part in a networkclaimed by the school, no confirmation, not counted in the scoreGuide to all organisations → What stands behind each entry
IBInternational Baccalaureate
A Swiss non-profit, working since 1968. Its programmes are among the most widely recognised school programmes in the world. Authorisation is granted stage by stage, so a school with the final stage does not necessarily run the younger ones; which stages this school holds is set out in the line below.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run this programme and to award its certificate. This is a confirmation of the programme, not a judgement on the school as a whole. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. At this school: PYP (ages 3-12), MYP (ages 11-16). PYP is the primary stage, ages 3 to 12. It is not a set of subjects but a frame for the whole school: learning is built around lines of inquiry, and there are no exams at the end. MYP is the middle stage, ages 11 to 16. There are no exams here either; at the end an optional electronic assessment of pupils' work is possible.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →College BoardCollege Board, the AP programme
An American organisation that allows a school to put the letters AP on a pupil's transcript. The permission is granted course by course and tied to a particular teacher, it has to be renewed every year, and College Board reads the course syllabus before granting it.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run advanced AP courses - not the school as a whole, but one by one: by subject and by teacher. Governance, safeguarding and the primary years are not part of that check. Which subjects are actually approved is visible in the ledger. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →AP
Advanced Placement: American advanced courses for the senior years. The exam for a course is set and marked by the College Board, not by the school. A good result is counted by American universities as a first-year course already passed, which saves a student time and money.
What this means for this school. A school does not get to call a course AP automatically: the College Board reads the course syllabus and approves it separately for every subject and every teacher, and the permission has to be renewed each year. Every approved school in the world is listed in the open AP Course Ledger, and this school's entry there stands as a line in the accreditation block above. How many courses a school is approved for, and in which subjects, the ledger does not show in its general listing. AP has no leaving certificate of its own: it sits on top of the school's main programme rather than being a separate system.
National programme
The state school programme of the country the school stands in: it is set by that country's ministry of education, which also licenses the school and awards the leaving certificate. That certificate is used for entry to local universities, and abroad it is matched to the local one.
What this means for this school. This entry does not count towards the score, and that is deliberate. Every lawful school in a country works to the national programme, so on its own it tells one school apart from no other - unlike the French, German or Russian programmes, which are carried abroad and confirmed by the register of their organisation. We show it because a parent needs to know what programme their child is taught and what certificate the child will get. Counting it would lift the whole ranking at once and still tell nobody apart.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
The school publishes nothing about where its leavers go: no share going on to university, no exam results, no list of universities.
Facilities from the school's official website
✓Swimming pool
✓Sports hall
✓Laboratories
✓Theatre or assembly hall
✓Library
·Cateringnot stated on the website
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Art studio
Campus: One campus in Yenibosna plus a sports and culture complex of 13,000 square metres of indoor space, opened in 1997 on the next street. Beyond teaching and sports spaces, the campus holds research rooms and a conference hall. All students of the school use the complex during lesson hours free of charge.
Teaching staff
The school publishes neither the number of its teachers nor their qualifications.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
The school says nothing on its website about security, medical care or pupil support.
Reviews
No reviews yet. The community rating counts towards the score once a school has five verified reviews - until then we do not show a zero, so as not to mislead.
Criteria breakdown criterion weight in brackets
Academics and programmes (16%)75 Community rating (16%)no dataparent reviews are needed: the criterion switches on at the fifth verified one Exams and destinations (12%) scored on disclosed data55 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data55 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)90 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data85 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data55 "Scored on disclosed data" stands where we count only what the school has written about itself on its own site: exams and destinations, safety and wellbeing, teaching staff, facilities, clubs and activities. A low score here means the school does not write about this, not that the school does not have it: a school with good security and a sparse site will score low. A school can fill in its profile, and the score will be counted again.
The score is counted from 8 of the 9 criteria.Only those with checkable data count: programmes and accreditations from official registers, the fee from a published price list. Where it says "scored on the median", the school has no data and the middle of the list is put in its place, so that a gap gives no advantage. Admissions, teaching staff and reviews come in as their data arrives.
The full methodology → Similar schools in the country
Istanbul, Turkey · est. 1990 · Private