What was the survey format?
The survey has more than 80 questions across four categories. We ask students to tell us about themselves, their school’s academics/administration, campus life, and their fellow students’ attitudes and opinions. For the multiple-choice questions, survey respondents indicate their answers on a five-point grid. The headers for the grids vary, depending on the type of question asked. They may range from “Excellent” to “Awful” or from “Extremely” to “Not at All.” In some cases the range is in percentages, from “0-20%” to “81-100%.” Each college is given a score based on its students’ answers to each survey question. This enables us to compare student opinions from college to college—apples to apples, as it were—and on that basis we tally the rankings. We also have several open-ended “comments” areas on the survey inviting students to tell us in their own words what they think of their schools, and we choose the most representative comments for inclusion in the narrative profiles.
The survey has more than 80 questions across four categories. We ask students to tell us about themselves, their school’s academics/administration, campus life, and their fellow students’ attitudes and opinions. For the multiple-choice questions, survey respondents indicate their answers on a five-point grid. The headers for the grids vary, depending on the type of question asked. They may range from “Excellent” to “Awful” or from “Extremely” to “Not at All.” In some cases the range is in percentages, from “0–20%” to “81–100%.” Each college is given a score based on its students’ answers to each survey question. This enables us to compare student opinions from college to college—apples to apples, as it were—and on that basis we tally the rankings. We also have several open-ended “comments” areas on the survey inviting students to tell us in their own words what they think of their schools, and we choose the most representative comments for inclusion in the narrative profiles.
