International students who mainstream into American colleges and universities face complex and varied linguistic, cultural and sociolinguistic challenges. Although the number of Turkish students enrolling in American institutions continues to increase, little research has focused on their academic experience from the perspective of the cultural and sociolinguistic difficulties they encounter. By surveying 58 Turkish students attending undergraduate and graduate programs in 18 different American colleges and universities, information about differences between their Turkish and U.S educational experience begins to emerge. Among these differences are expectations for the content of academic lectures; the common practice of establishing academic study groups in the U.S.; the format and content of exams, and attitudes and perceptions toward plagiarism. This paper identifies and describes these differences and then provides possible implications for consideration by ESL instructors, international students and professors, and administrators in U.S. higher education contexts in order to ease the transition of these students into their new educational environments. Turkish Student Survey is appended. (Contains 4 tables.)