6 AI Tools To Prepare Students for College and Career

AI is quickly changing how students learn, plan, and explore their futures, offering new tools for career discovery, academic support, and accessibility. When students use AI tools with guidance from educators, these tools can deepen engagement rather than replace critical thinking. 

Key Takeaways

• AI is reshaping how students learn and plan their futures. Tools like YouScience, ScholarAI, and ChatGPT can help students explore careers, strengthen academic skills, and make informed decisions when used thoughtfully.
• Balance is key. Just as GPS can weaken our sense of direction, overreliance on AI can limit students’ critical thinking and engagement. Educators play a vital role in helping students use AI as a support, not a shortcut.
• Ethical use matters. Students should understand where AI can assist (such as brainstorming, organizing, and research) and where it crosses a line (such as completing assignments or writing arguments for them).
• AI can expand access and inclusion. Text-to-speech tools like Speechify and adaptive platforms like YouScience can make learning more personalized and accessible to diverse learners.
• AI literacy is the new essential skill. Teaching students to evaluate AI outputs, prompt effectively, and use these tools responsibly will prepare them for an evolving college and career landscape.

The “GPS Effect”
and Student Disengagement

Studies on GPS usage show that we become worse at navigating an area the more we rely on turn-by-turn navigation. Our spatial intelligence declines because we disengage from the environment we are in. AI can have a similar effect. When a student asks, say, ChatGPT to summarize a book, write an outline, or generate an argument, they skip over the cognitive work that leads to genuine understanding. AI tools can inadvertently remove students from the learning environment. Educators remedy the issue by instructing students on proper AI usage for academic work.

Teachers also face academic integrity issues with AI usage in class, and though research on AI is still in its infancy, as the dilemmas of AI usage continue to pour in, there is no standard procedure for AI usage. So much of the limits of its usage depend entirely on the educator, school, or district.

Ethical Use
in Academic Contexts

Before looking at some AI tools, let’s explore a few examples of where AI can support learning, and where it crosses a line.

What is Appropriate Use of AI?

• Asking for themes in a novel (e.g., What are the themes in I, Robot?)
• Requesting help simplifying a passage or changing the tone of an email to make it more formal or more direct
• Using AI to generate flashcards, quiz questions, or topic ideas
  Using tools like ScholarAI to aid research and find relevant sources
• Using text-to-speech or speech-to-text tools for reading and note-taking
• Grammar checking

What is Questionable Use of AI?

• Asking AI to write a claim and find evidence for you
• Having AI create a full outline for an essay
• Copying and pasting AI-generated content into an assignment and fabricating it as your own

Why creating an outline with AI is wrong

I was a tutor in college, and when students came to me worried, asking for help writing a history paper, I used to assure them that, if they could create an outline to the paper, they could write the rest of the paper! The outline lays down the direction of your paper with the important arguments and pieces of evidence you’ll need, including an overall structure for what you are trying to say. However, if a student requires AI to write the outline, the foundation of the paper is not theirs, and students should not feel comfortable turning in that work as their own.

Students should consider the goal of higher education: building academic and career skills, discovering personal interests, and developing critical thinking. Overusing AI might help you pass a class, but it won’t prepare you for life. Overusage can also mean a student won’t get their money’s worth for the time spent in school.

Teachers and professors are a students first go-to to ask about ethical and appropriate AI usage. Many professors will have different boundaries for AI usage, and that is expected, since there is no written manual on the ethical and academic usage of AI, as the concerns are ever multiplying.

AI Tools That Support
College and Career Readiness

YouScience

Products include College and Career Readiness Platform

• Aptitude & Career Discovery
• Industry-Recognized Certifications
• Work-Based Learning
• Data & Reporting

In short, YouScience uses AI to assess student aptitudes, interests, and skills, then matches them with potential career paths and educational choices. YouScience is particularly helpful because it gives students in-depth insight into their natural abilities, not just what they like. A student’s aptitudes and interests are personalized through brain games. This is important to be on a student’s radar early. Jace, a customer success manager at YouScience, explained to me that there is a large tendency for students to gravitate towards popular careers that they know of, which often require a lot of prep work, like lawyers, architects, and business owners, but in truth there are many careers that students don’t realize they would be very successful in. YouScience aids in this discovery of opportunity.

Helping students discover new careers, as well as providing students with detailed explanations of their skills and interests, supports counselors with actionable data for advising. Starting career conversations early on is what many of our students are missing in their time in high school. Along with supporting counselors, YouScience can serve as a foundation for career conversations with teachers and help teachers design individualized learning plans to develop already recognized skills the students possess. Interactive reports for a single student, class, or district are also easily accessible for counselors and educators.

What I find most supportive for students within YouScience’s platform is the accessibility to over 200+ industry-recognized certification courses. After considering dream jobs, students can take courses and get certifications to build their knowledge and skills while they are in high school. Other tools YouScience offers are a four-year course planner and resume builder to help students complete tasks and prepare them to complete postsecondary applications.

Lastly, employer listing pages include local and national businesses, nonprofits, and government organizations. Employers are featured throughout a student’s time using YouScience based on students’ aptitudes, interests, and certifications. Schools can easily request a demo as I did.

YouScience costs $49 per student for full access.*

DecideEd

DecidED is a financial aid comparison tool that helps students make informed, confident decisions about where to go to college and how to pay for it. DecidED allows students to upload and compare their financial aid award letters, showing them clearly how much each option will cost out of pocket and how it aligns with their goals. The tool translates confusing financial aid data into clear visuals and personalized advice, helping students see which offers are financially sustainable. Advisors can also use DecidED to guide conversations with students, ensuring they understand the real cost of college before making a commitment.

Educators can introduce DecidED during college application season or financial aid workshops to help students make more informed postsecondary decisions.

Empowers Informed Decision-Making

The tool helps students understand the financial realities of their college options and make informed choices that reduce the risk of debt or dropping out.

Promotes Financial Literacy

By breaking down award letters into simple, transparent terms, DecidED helps students build confidence in managing money and evaluating offers.

Enhances Advising Conversations

Advisors can use the tool to center conversations on students’ goals and affordability, saving time and deepening student understanding.

Free and Accessible

DecidED is free for students and educators, making it an equitable resource for schools and organizations that support first-generation students and those from low-income communities.

ScholarAI

Scholar AI is a research and study assistant designed for students and researchers—it connects users to a massive database (200 M+ papers and patents), and simplifies complex academic tasks. It can help create study material, as students can easily upload photos of their notes and ask the program to organize them clearly, or create flashcards to study. It has a speech-to-text option to upload a class lecture or notes. Students can have conversations with Scholar AI to better understand documents or articles, while also asking for an in-depth summary of an article that goes beyond the explanation of an abstract.

Lastly, ScholarAI can assist in finding academic scholarships. Students create an action plan and receive a narrowed-down list of scholarships as well as tips for applying.

Educators should become familiar with the tool and do demonstrations in class. The benefits of Scholar AI are:

Boosts Academic Readiness

It preps students for the rigors of college research, critical reading, and higher‑level writing.

Saves Time

It automates time-consuming tasks like note-taking, summarizing sources, and quiz-making. Though it should be mentioned that hand written notes have been proven to help memorization and retrieval of content.

Supports Inclusive Learning

This tool is great for multilingual students, students learning English, and those new to academic workflows.

Free Access

There is a free version for students, though the paid plan provides more features.

Google Gemini or ChatGPT
(AI Research Assistants)

High school students are typically familiar with both platforms and how they can assist with academic and life tasks. Though both tools are Large Language Models (LLMs), Gemini excels in academic research, large document processing, and accessing real-time data, while ChatGPT is more known for its strong conversational abilities, creative writing, and coding assistance. With both, you can adjust the responses to prompts to make them simpler, more casual, more professional, longer, etc. You can export prompts and responses; however, Google Gemini more seamlessly integrates with other Google products like Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Docs. You can use it for grammar, spelling, and proofreading.

Here are some example ways students can use both platforms:

Research

Gemini’s “Deep Research” feature can browse and analyze many websites in real-time, generating comprehensive research reports while saving time. This can become helpful for students in the exploration phases of college and career research. By prompting “What colleges in the Midwest have the most renowned architecture programs?” students can retrieve an overview of reliable options. This type of high-quality research can provide students with up-to-date data on career trends, salaries, important job skills, and company research.

Writing

ChatGPT’s and Gemini’s writing capabilities can help you clarify or refine your writing, proofread essays, or brainstorm research topics. Both can assist in career readiness through creating customized mock interviews and practice questions. Both can even provide specific resume/cover letter feedback unique to the positions to which students are applying.

Organization and productivity

ChatGPT and Gemini can easily save and access notes, assignments, and PDFs. The NotebookLM feature can also be used to make timelines, briefs, and FAQs.

Students should use both tools as a tutor, asking for corrections with the intention of better understanding the material. If students fail to understand a correction, these tools don’t serve their purpose.

Key information for educators: Students should be taught to verify information and treat AI as a starting point, not a final authority.

Speechify

Speechify is a helpful text-to-speech (TTS) tool that can greatly support high school students as they prepare for college. By converting textbooks, articles, essays, and web content into natural-sounding audio, it helps students improve reading comprehension, save time, and engage in more efficient study routines. Students can listen to materials at increased speeds, utilizing passive moments—like commuting or exercising—into productive learning. It’s especially beneficial for auditory learners, students with ADHD or dyslexia, and those managing a heavy workload, say, students in IB or AP courses, in dual-enrollment courses, or students balancing work and school.

In addition, Speechify supports the college application process by helping students proofread essays through audio playback, making it easier to catch grammar mistakes or awkward phrasing. English language learners also benefit from its clear voice delivery and adjustable playback speed. Whether used for studying, essay editing, or reviewing scholarship materials, Speechify encourages independent learning and builds strong academic habits that align with the demands of college-level coursework.

Practical Prompting Tips

Now that we’ve looked at just a few AI tools, it is only wise that we spend some time discussing how to prompt these tools. Students need to learn how to properly prompt in order to properly take advantage of AI tools. When prompting, you need to think of fundamentals and lowest-level components of what you are asking.

The following three tips for proper AI prompting come from AI Tools for Education: The Development of a Free Asynchronous Course, a chapter from Angelos Rodafinos’ book, The Power of Technology in School Leadership during COVID-19.

• Set a role: Assigning a role to the Large Language Model (LLM) helps set the perspective or point of view for the model’s response, enhancing context and relevance.
• Give it a task: Providing specific instructions guides the LLM’s response, clearly defining the problem or objective.
• Ask for output: Clearly specifying the desired output ensures the model aligns its response with the expectations.
  • (Example: “You’re a career coach. Help me identify my top transferable skills.”)
  • (Example: “Explain photosynthesis to a 10-year-old in simple terms using a fun metaphor.”)
  • (Example: “List 5 low-budget digital marketing strategies for a new vegan snack brand, and rank them by effectiveness.”)

How important is
AI literacy for the future?

It is extremely important. AI is rapidly integrating into almost every industry. Developing AI literacy means:

• Understanding AI’s capabilities and limitations: Knowing how to leverage AI tools effectively in your future workplace.
• Critical evaluation: Being able to discern reliable AI output from inaccurate or biased information.
• Ethical considerations: Understanding the ethical implications of AI in professional settings.
• Adaptability: The ability to learn and adapt to new AI technologies as they emerge will be a key skill in the evolving job market.

How AI Tools Can Strengthen
College and Career Advising

AI tools can be powerful supports for students exploring college and career options, but they’re most effective when used in conjunction with human guidance. In this post, we highlight six AI tools that help students research programs, compare financial aid offers, and prepare for applications. These tools work best as part of a hybrid advising approach, where technology enhances—but never replaces—the personalized support that advisors provide.

Q&A

Should schools fully adopt AI tools for college and career readiness?

AI can complement your existing work but shouldn’t replace personal advising, mentorship, and human judgment. Use these tools as an extra resource.

How can we make sure students are using AI responsibly?

Teach students to double-check AI-generated information, verify sources, and cross-reference data with trusted resources like official college websites or labor market reports.

Are these tools free?

Some offer free versions or trials, while others require a license or subscription. Schools may want to pilot a few tools before making larger investments.

Is there a risk of bias in AI-generated recommendations?

Yes. AI is only as unbiased as the data it’s trained on. Educators should encourage students to approach AI recommendations critically and continue exploring diverse options. AI has a high degree of agreeableness, so the further you push it through interrogation, the more likely it will agree with you.

How can counselors stay up to date on these tools?

Attend professional development sessions, join counselor networks focused on AI in education, and test drive some of these tools to see how they work firsthand. Requesting demos from the platforms themselves also helps.

*Pricing accurate as of July 2025.

David Soto has been a Chicago resident his entire life. From being a Chicago Public Schools student, to attending both Saint Xavier University to the University of Illinois at Chicago, David has always been deeply devoted to Chicago. He is currently teaching high school history in the IB program and is a OneGoal Program Director at Prosser Career Academy. He sponsors and leads the Student Voice Committee at Prosser, which continually inspires him as a community member.

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