As many soon-to-graduate seniors know, the online application for degree comes with a request to fill out a “Graduating Senior Survey.” The survey asks questions in categories ranging from campus climate to personal growth, all in hopes of gaining insight into how NC State can improve as a university.
Due to the sheer number of responses in surveying all students graduating during a certain academic year, this survey is only done every three years, the last one was completed by seniors who graduated from 2015-2016.
Nancy Whelchel, director for survey research in the Office of Institutional Research and Planning, gave more insight into how the survey is designed, including the new, user-friendly visual display for breaking down results of past surveys by college, gender and race/ethnicity.
“We do the graduating seniors survey, a campus-wide survey, every three years,” Whelchel said. “Starting four weeks before graduation in December, and then four weeks before graduation in May, we directly email the students who filled out the online application for degree but have not yet submitted the survey.”
Although the survey is optional, Whelchel said that response rates typically range from 50-60%, varying by college and department.
“We break [results] down by college and by department so they can get feedback from their students,” Whelchel said. “They have vested interest in seeing what the students are saying, so some departments will have a response rate that is 100% because they really encouraged their students to respond.”
Whelchel said that the three-year time interval for administering the survey was determined by the UNC System, and was changed from two to three years relatively recently.
“They wanted to give us time to not just collect the data, but process it and think about it and make decisions based on it,” Whelchel said. “The UNC System office just this year, as of now, no longer requires these surveys at all…Most of the campuses across the system are still administering the survey in one shape or another because it’s useful.”
Whelchel said that a large portion of the survey is geared towards academic life, with other topics such as campus climate, employment, involvement and help outside the classroom covered as well. While she said most of the survey is in a “closed-end” format, the Graduating Senior Survey has a couple of open ended questions at the end as well.
“We are constantly looking to make improvements to the questionnaire,” Whelchel said. “Either, an area being asked about is no longer a high priority item or the information is not being used, so we can drop it, or we need to get more information about some other area, so we add some new questions. Often we need to tweak the wording of a question. We try not to change the questionnaire too much, however, because then you lose the trend data. So, this can be a bit of a dilemma sometimes.”
Rachita Shah, a fourth-year in aerospace engineering, gave her insight on some of the topics covered by the graduating senior survey.
“I really liked the campus climate,” Shah said. “I’ve had great classes for the most part, so I’m happy for that. Plus, a lot of my professors were willing to make themselves available outside of classroom.”
Shah said that if she could start over again, she would still choose NC State and aerospace engineering.
“For many units on campus, this is their way of getting feedback directly from their students, so they can know what they’re doing well and where they need to make improvements,” Whelchel said. “We really appreciate [students] taking the time to do it. It’s voluntary, it’s confidential and it does, in fact, make a difference.”
To learn more about the graduating senior survey and view past results, students can visit the Office of Institutional Research and Planning website.
