Bachelor program and university selection for STPM leavers using TOPSIS

Abstract

Choosing an appropriate bachelor program and university is a common scenario. In Malaysia, one major group of bachelor program prospect students is Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia (STPM, Malaysian High School Certificate) leavers. The prospect students made the selection based on several factors, including the requirement by the university, personal preferences, and influences by parents, teachers, and peers. The decision made is normally unstructured and bias due to the personal preferences and the influencers. This research aims to study “Technique for Order Preference for Similarity to an Ideal Solution” (TOPSIS) from the multiple attribute decision making (MADM) method family in assisting the STPM leavers in choosing the program and university. Decision criteria are obtained from a group of STPM students (domain experts). The actual requirement from twenty Malaysian public universities and STPM results are used to illustrate the application of the proposed method. The illustrative experiments and results of the study have successfully shown the ranked alternatives.