SEV Amerikan Koleji
Istanbul, Turkey · est. 2014 · PrivateA high school of the SEV foundation in Cekmekoy, Istanbul, founded in 2014, with 580 students and 75 teachers. Every subject except the Turkish culture courses is taught in English, and students choose German, Spanish or French as a second foreign language. The first year is a preparatory class built around intensive English, and no English is required on entry. From Grade 9 an elective system offers modern Turkish and world history, German and French literature, public speaking, journalism, drama, web design and animation, and AP preparation in chemistry and physics. The school day runs from 07:50 to 14:45 and there is no boarding. The school counts close to fifty clubs and activity groups. It belongs to the group of institutions of the SEV foundation.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
CIS · accreditationIB · DP · authorised programmeCollege Board · authorised programmeSEV · school is part of the networkWhat stands behind each entry
It accredits international schools and is a paying association at the same time. It examines governance and ownership, the curriculum, teaching, student wellbeing, staff and premises; a team of volunteers from other CIS accredited schools visits the school. Membership and accreditation are different things here, and schools confuse them more often than anything else.
What the badge means for this school. The school has been through this organisation's accreditation. It was judged as a whole: governance, safeguarding, staff, premises, teaching. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →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: DP (ages 16-19). DP is the final stage, ages 16 to 19: six subjects plus a compulsory core of theory of knowledge, an extended essay and CAS. The diploma is accepted by universities all over the world, and in a number of countries it counts for admission on the same footing as the local leaving certificate.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →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 →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.
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.
Schools of the Sağlık ve Eğitim Vakfı, the Health and Education Foundation: the foundation was established in 1968 by graduates of four American schools in Turkey - Üsküdar American Academy, American Collegiate Institute, Tarsus American College and Talas American Middle School, - is governed by a board of trustees and a board of directors on a voluntary basis and exists separately from the schools. The foundation names eight institutions of its own: four American colleges - Üsküdar American Academy, American Collegiate Institute, Tarsus American College and SEV American College, - three Turkish SEV schools, in Istanbul, Izmir and Tarsus, and the Redhouse publishing house, set up as a separate company, SEV Yayıncılık. The cities are Istanbul, Izmir and Tarsus; the Istanbul kindergarten and middle school have moved to a campus in Çekmeköy.
What this means for this school. The network owns or operates the school. Its accreditation and programme authorisation the school obtains separately, in its own name.