Abstract:

Recent studies on the Spanish university system indicate that 7 out of 10 students have bad expectations about their employment in a job directly related with their training.

Moreover, data on academic performance show high dropout rates. The hypothesis of this paper is that problem may be related to a bad orientation previous to university.

In Catalonia we have a global system to coordinate access to the different universities. This system allows us analyze students accessing the university. For example, we can know what channels of information and orientation have used these students and we can know what criteria have used those students to choose a degree course.

Moreover, we also have the results of a recent survey of the opinion that the Spanish society has about university. This research shows that access to the Universidad is a complex process full of changes and it affects important aspects of the lives of students and their families:

• Personal changes
• Adapting to new organizational systems
• News rules
• Changes on studding methods

So often, transition from secondary schools to university supposes a very clear discontinuity in the formative process.

Between the first outcomes of this research it is worth emphasizing the following ones:

• Students mostly come to their families to decide.
• Poor information affects academic performance.
• There are differences between different degree courses