When academic choices reveal the complexity of decision-making processes: an exploration of heuristics[Quand l’orientation scolaire révèle la complexité des processus décisionnels : Exploration des heuristiques]

School choice represents a consequential consumption choice that shapes students' trajectories in increasingly competitive and stereotype-saturated educational contexts. Despite its significance, the decision mechanisms underlying school choice remain understudied. Drawing on dual-process theory, this research investigates whether academic decision-making processes result primarily from deliberative calculation or are shaped by cognitive heuristics and biases. We conducted a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with 20 students to map their decision-making processes. Our analysis identifies two key perceptual dimensions influencing decision outcomes: perceived complexity and perceived time-pressure. We find that students employ decision heuristics to navigate this complex choice environment. These findings challenge the classical dichotomy of dual-process theory. Rather than a clean separation between System 2 (deliberative) and System 1 (intuitive) reasoning, our data reveal a hybrid decision process in which deliberative reasoning is continuously informed, and often biased, by intuitive heuristic operations.