A Hybrid AI Framework for Academic Advising: Integrating Ensemble-Based Grade Prediction and a Rule-Based Expert System

The rapidly increasing student population has posed serious challenges to the traditional academic advising process. This study designs and implements a multi-purpose intelligent system to support students' academic progress, based on a two-part hybrid framework: (1) an advanced model for grade prediction and (2) a rule-based recommendation engine. Using a dataset containing 416,558 educational records from the University of Birjand, students were first divided into homogeneous clusters using the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM). Subsequently, a Stacking Ensemble model combining Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, and MLP was trained specifically for each cluster. Evaluation results demonstrated that the Stacking model outperformed base models across all clusters, achieving a final aggregated RMSE of 2.35. The second component is an expert system that provides intelligent recommendations by synergizing educational regulations with the grades predicted by the first component. This system has been implemented as a practical tool on the University of Birjand portal, offering students real-time feedback such as semester GPA prediction, probation risk warnings, and course suggestions for GPA improvement.