This article seeks to substantiate the need for the prognostic assessment of the degree to which school students are prepared to master new types of activity, which underlie their design of an individual learning route at an appropriate senior stage of learning. The authors discuss the concept of project competence as an integral characteristic of such preparedness. The article describes the components of school students' project competence, characterizes the degrees to which they may be formed, and brings to light the possibility of diagnosing these components using specially prepared cases. The authors describe the experience of pilot-testing the methodology, discuss their findings, and identify major gaps in the project competence of present-day school students.