Abstract

A university career decision is one of the hardest decisions high school students must make to navigate into their academic journey. Guidance plays an important role in helping students understand the available options and shape their future. The wide variety of these available options along with the changing job market pose challenges in providing efficient guidance. Artificial intelligence (AI) can provide a solution that helps customize the university career guidance based on each student profile.

The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of artificial intelligence in enhancing university career guidance for high school students, by providing personalized recommendations based on their academic background and preferences.

The guidance is provided by proposing a web application that collects information from the student through a multi-step array of questions, providing a clear description of students’ academic background and their preferences. Through integration with AI via a developed Application Programmable Interface (API) module, the tool collects information from students, and matches it to university opportunities and evolving job markets. Through this analysis, personalized career recommendations and guidance are provided to clarify different educational pathways so students can make informed decisions. This AI integration represents significant progress toward helping students with the necessary guidance to understand the most suitable educational journeys and pursue careers aligned with their preferences and capabilities.

This study demonstrates the effectiveness of the studied AI-driven guidance system. By analyzing the academic and career trajectories of high school students who utilized the web application hosted as bestuniforme.com, we observed a significant improvement in their decision-making confidence and satisfaction levels. Preliminary findings suggest that students who engaged with the AI-guided system were 30% more likely to feel confident in their university and career choices, compared to those who followed traditional guidance methods.