This study examines how student and school characteristics are related to Turkish students' English language achievement in Evaluation of Student Achievement Test (ÖBBS) of 2009. The participants of the study involve 43707 ninth year students who were required to take ÖBBS in 2009. For data analysis two level hierarchical linear modeling was conducted. The findings of the study show that many variables that fall outside of the domain of language related variables influence the foreign language performance of students. Since it creates an awareness of student and school characteristics that are related to English language achievement, the study is significant for foreign language teachers and language teaching policy makers.