Uni Advisor

A personal university advisor powered by Claude. Helps you research courses, compare universities, explore European options, build a UCAS shortlist, and work on your personal statement.

Built for UK Year 12/13 students applying via UCAS, with full coverage of European university options. Profiles you first — no hardcoded course assumptions.

Scope: Built around the UK application system (UCAS, A-levels, UK universities + European alternatives). Works best for UK students. If you're outside the UK you'll find gaps in the process guidance.

---

Two ways to use it

Option 1 — Claude.ai Project (any plan, including free)

1. Go to claude.ai → Projects → New project
2. Click Edit project instructions
3. Copy and paste the contents of claude-ai-project-instructions.md
4. Save

Every conversation inside that project will have the advisor ready to go. State is tracked via a copy-paste Profile Summary block between sessions.

---

Option 2 — Claude Code skill (requires Claude Code)

Step 1 — Install files:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/uni-advisor
BASE="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PatrickCroft-Baker/uni-advisor/main/uni-advisor"
curl -o ~/.claude/skills/uni-advisor/SKILL.md "$BASE/SKILL.md"
curl -o ~/.claude/skills/uni-advisor/reference-template.md "$BASE/reference-template.md"
curl -o ~/.claude/skills/uni-advisor/generate-uni-pdf.py "$BASE/generate-uni-pdf.py"
curl -o ~/.claude/skills/uni-advisor/setup.sh "$BASE/setup.sh"

Step 2 — Run setup (installs fpdf2 and downloads fonts for PDF generation):

bash ~/.claude/skills/uni-advisor/setup.sh

Step 3 — Start:

/uni-advisor

On first use it will ask where to save your progress, then run through a short profile interview. After that it picks up where you left off every session, with full file tracking.

PDF reports require Python 3 and are set up automatically by setup.sh. If you skip setup, all modes still work — you just won't be able to generate PDF research briefs.

---

What it does

• Profiles you — one-time interview covering your subjects, interests, goals, and constraints
• Researches courses — based on your confirmed interests via web search, not a hardcoded list
• Compares universities — subject rankings (not overall), NSS scores, graduate outcomes
• European options — country-by-country breakdown including Germany (free tuition at most public unis), TU Delft, ETH Zurich
• Shortlist strategy — builds your UCAS 5 choices with an honest reach/target/safe split
• Personal statement coaching — guides you through the 2026 three-question format
• Tracks your progress — file-based (Claude Code) or copy-paste summary block (Claude.ai)