Marcel: A Lightweight and Open-Source Conversational Agent for University Student Support

Abstract: We present Marcel, a lightweight and open-source conversational agent designed to support prospective students with admission-related inquiries. The system aims to provide fast and personalized responses, while reducing workload of university staff. We employ retrieval-augmented generation to ground answers in university resources and to provide users with verifiable, contextually relevant information. To improve retrieval quality, we introduce an FAQ retriever that maps user questions to knowledge-base entries, allowing administrators to steer retrieval, and improving over standard dense/hybrid retrieval strategies. The system is engineered for easy deployment in resource-constrained academic settings. We detail the system architecture, provide a technical evaluation of its components, and report insights from a real-world deployment.