The transition from lower to upper secondary education is a critical developmental stage, requiring decisions with long-term academic and professional consequences. Addressing a gap in evidence that often treats counselling, family educational capital, and place of residence separately, this study examines how these factors jointly relate to students’ high school track/profile choice and their intention to pursue higher education in the Romanian educational transition. Using a standardized questionnaire, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of 1392 lower secondary students (aged 13–14) from Brașov County, Romania, to map preferred tracks, influencing factors, perceptions of high school, and the values framing decision-making. High school track/profile choice emerged as a central “decision node”, strongly associated with participation in counselling p < 0.001; Cramer’s V = 0.678) and significantly related to parents’ educational level and university intentions. Substantial urban–rural differences were observed in track/profile choice (p < 0.001; V = 0.442), with urban students selecting the “real” track more frequently (≈68%) than rural students (≈37%). University intention was high overall, with a small but significant urban–rural difference (≈89.7% vs. ≈86.9%; p = 0.028; V = 0.072). Findings support integrating counselling into coherent adolescent career development models and expanding services to reduce contextual disparities through stronger school–family–community partnerships. This evidence is relevant for education policy and practice by supporting the scaling of school-based career guidance and targeted measures to reduce rural–urban disparities.
Coman et al. (2026) studied this question.