Career Recommendation System for High-School Seniors based on Government Standardized-Tests Results

When it comes to choosing a career path, senior high-school students struggle to make a decision. The purpose of this research is to help such students select a career track by providing a match-based scored recommendation of academic and professional routes, promoting the development of the government-aided quality educational system by reducing the student dropout. Recommendations are based on the results of the Colombian standardized Saber 11 examination (which is similar to SAT [Scholastic Assessment Test] scores in the U.S.), and how other students with similar characteristics (demographic, socio-economic, family information) performed in their undergraduate tests and the Colombian standardized Saber Pro exam (which is similar to GRE -Graduate Record Examination- scores in the U.S.). Collected information was bundled with their career choice and the recommendation system was developed using Machine Learning and Deep Learning techniques, ROC (Receiver operating characteristic) curve was computed for each career and found on average the AUC (Area under the ROC Curve) score was 0.86 despite the high variability between them. In addition, a business metric was built and evaluated.