The University of Bahçeşehir was established - with the permission of the Turkish National Assembly - by the Bahçeşehir Ugur Education Foundation in Istanbul 1998.
An academic and strategic protocol was signed later that year with San Diego State University in California.
It is considered one of the best privately owned universities in Turkey and was one of the few Turkish universities to give its lectures in English, therefore it is still a high priority for students applying to have a high level of English proficiency.
Its motto is "a world university in the heart of Istanbul," evidenced too by its international campuses in Washington DC, Boston, Toronto, Rome, Berlin and Hong Kong. It also has almost 200 international partners, including Harvard University.
There are 17,048 students, of which 10,137 are undergraduates and 4716 are postgraduates.
There are eight faculties: the faculty of law, the faculty of economics, administrative and social sciences, the faculty of communication, the faculty of architecture and design, the faculty of engineering and natural sciences, the faculty of health sciences, the faculty of medicine, plus one school of languages, two vocational schools and four institutes of postgraduate education.
Its main campus is in Besiktas, on the edge of the Bosphorus, often known as the Strait of Istanbul. A free boat shuttle service for all students and staff links the four campuses: Besiktas North, Besiktas South, Göztepe and Galata.
Istanbul (historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople) is the most populated city in Turkey and the country's economic, cultural, and historic centre. It straddles the Bosporus strait (which separates Europe and Asia), with its commercial and historical centre on the European side and a third of its population on the Asian side.
