The IICS Story

Our school was started as the international sister school for the children of Robert College’s foreign teachers. Established in 1863 as a school for Turkish children, Robert College is the oldest extant American college located off American soil, and we share a long, rich history.

Over the years, IICS has gone through the transformation from being Robert College’s sister school to a school serving all of Istanbul’s expatriate students: our name-change reflects this. Although RC is an American curriculum school, IICS is international. In fact, we hold the distinction of being one of the first schools in the world to become authorized to offer all three International Baccalaureate programs.

Since 1911, generations of international students have sparked their passion for learning at IICS, as will many generations to come.

To give a frame of reference for this longevity, in 1911, when our school was founded, it was originally named Robert College Community School (RCCS). Turkey’s ruler was Mehmed V Reshad, the 35th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. There would be one more sultan and one more caliph before 1923, when our school would witness the end of a six-hundred-year-old empire and the birth of a new republic. IICS is one of the oldest international schools in the world: we have been around for more than a century now.