The main concern of this paper was to study the career preferences and academic performance of the students in relation to their gender, locality and parental occupation. The investigator tried to see differences in career preferences and academic performance among university students in relation to their gender, locality and parental occupation. For the present study descriptive survey design was used with sample of 60 Central University students of different departments with the help of simple random sampling technique. The data for the study were collected using self constructed questionnaire on career preferences and to measure the academic performance, the marks obtained by the students in the previous qualified examination were taken from the record. The collected data were analyzed with the help of critical ratio and the findings of the study revealed that there are significant differences in the career preferences of the students in relation to their locality. The results, in this way go a long to help parents, teachers, government and counselors to use their human and material resources in planning and implementing policies to direct students in the path most suitable to them.