A private school of the Vehbi Koc Foundation, founded in 1988 and starting with its high school section. Since 2016 it has operated under the name The Koç School. It runs a bilingual instructional programme with a diverse academic staff and takes students from kindergarten through grade 12. It does not print its own student numbers or student-teacher ratio on its English pages.
Key facts
Programmes
IB · DP · National programme
Languages of instruction
Turkish, English
About the fees Tuition figures are published as a separate downloadable file linked from the School Tuition Fees page, marked for the 2025-2026 academic year; no figures are printed in the page itself. Meals are handled separately: monthly menus are prepared by a Healthy Nutrition and Life Committee made up of students, teachers, school administration, parent members of the parent and teacher association, a doctor, an independent dietitian, the catering company's food engineer and a cook; meals are prepared in kitchens inside the school, and cafeteria registration is not compulsory for primary, middle and high school students. Scholarships and discounts, and the administrative and financial enrollment terms, are kept on separate pages.
Admissions Admission differs by level. For kindergarten and grades 1, 2 and 3 candidates are selected by a lottery conducted before a notary public, and the number of places is announced for each academic year against current enrollment. Middle school admission runs through entrance examinations whose scope and schedule the school publishes on its own page. High school and boarding admission follow the national LGS examination score and a quota: boarding applications are accepted every June during high school registration renewal, usually at the end of June and in the first two weeks of July, according to the Ministry calendar. Grade 9 boarding places are offered where vacancies exist, with the examination announcement published in July; students from other grade levels may enroll if there is a vacancy, in which case the Boarding Dean decides. A separate grade 9 transfer process runs each year - in 2026 applications were open from 22 July to 21 August.
Stages and year groups One school on one campus in Tuzla, from kindergarten to grade 12, divided into three licensed institutions: VKF Koç Private Kindergarten and Primary School, VKF Koç Private Middle School and VKF Koç Private High School. The school began in 1988 with the high school, opened the primary section in 1998 and was restructured for the 4+4+4 reform in 2012. The high school includes a Lise Prep class.
Address Tepeören Mahallesi, Eski Ankara Asfaltı Caddesi No: 60, Tuzla / İstanbul
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
CIS · accreditationIB · DP · authorised programmeIn 2025 the school achieved accreditation from the Council of International Schools. In its own words the CIS evaluation team assessed learning and teaching processes, academic practices, school culture, strategic decision-making and stakeholder engagement, with extensive interviews and classroom observations. The CIS registry records the school as Accredited. The IB Diploma Programme runs in the high school, which keeps a dedicated IB Humanities department; the school names no PYP or MYP. It publishes neither a Cambridge centre number nor an IB code. The school also holds the Common Sense School designation for its work on digital citizenship, which carries no accreditation threshold.
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
CISCouncil of International Schools
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 →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: 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 →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 poolnot stated on the website
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
✓Library
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
✓Boarding
Also on site: Sports ground or field
Campus: The campus in Tuzla on the old Ankara road, maintained by the school's own Plant and Facilities unit. The school runs a sustainability strand covering biodiversity, environment and energy management and occupational health and safety.
Teaching staff
There is no data for this section yet.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
·CCTVnot stated on the website
·Security staffnot stated on the website
·Access controlnot stated on the website
·Nurse or medical roomnot stated on the website
·Counsellornot stated on the website
✓Child protection policy
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
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%)82 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 data60 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)90 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data75 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data55 Value for money (6%) scored at the median65 "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 7 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. 1988 · Private