The Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Freshman Survey is administered by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA. Informing colleges and universities since 1966, the CIRP Freshman Survey has collected data on over 13 million students at over 1,900 institutions, and is the largest American study of higher education. The CIRP Freshman Survey is designed to provide comprehensive information on your incoming first-year students. It can be used by itself, or, when used in conjunction with the Your First College Year Survey (YFCY) and the College Senior Survey (CSS), provides valuable baseline data for a longitudinal assessment. The CIRP Freshman Survey is used by researchers and practitioners to examine readiness for college, how students choose colleges, student values and beliefs about diversity and civic engagement, and student expectations.

Participating institutions receive a detailed profile of their entering freshman class, as well as national normative data for students in similar types of institutions. These campus profile reports, together with the national normative profile, provide important data that can be useful in a variety of program and policy areas:

• Admissions and recruitment
• Academic program development, review and self-assessment
• Institutional self-study and accreditation activities
• Public relations and advancement/development
• Institutional research and assessment
• Retention studies
• Longitudinal research about the impact of policies and programs

Although the normative data provided with the institutional reports (and published annually in The American Freshman) are based on the population of first-time, full-time freshmen, participating institutions also receive separate reports for their part-time and transfer students. Additionally, participating campuses can obtain supplemental reports profiling students by various subgroups (for example, by intended major or career, by academic ability, by home state).

The CIRP Freshman Survey is designed for administration to incoming first-year students before they start classes at your institution. The instrument collects extensive information that allows for a snapshot of what your incoming students are like before they experience college. Key sections of the survey examine:

• Established behaviors in high school;
• Academic preparedness;
• Admissions decisions;
• Expectations of college;
• Interactions with peers and faculty;
• Student values and goals and
• Student demographic characteristics; and
• Concerns about financing college.

Many of the items on the CIRP Freshman Survey are pre-test questions that are then post-tested on the two CIRP follow-up surveys, the YFCY and the CSS, providing for longitudinal examination of cognitive and affective growth during college. All CIRP surveys allow you to add questions of your own on the instrument.

  Click here for a copy of the 2009 TFS survey instrument .

  The document denoting changes between the 2008 and 2009 instrument.

Web Survey Option
The CIRP Freshman Survey is conducted before students start their college careers, and is available as early as March and as late as October. Traditionally a paper survey, the CIRP Freshman survey is now available as a web survey. The CIRP Web Portal (www.cirpsurveys.org) provides greater flexibility and ease of use when managing your survey administration.

The Paper Survey	is best when administered in a large-group setting during orientation, but is also used in classrooms, residence halls, or small groups. It can also be administered through the mail. You set the delivery date and the number of questionnaires needed. Your paper survey data is available just 3 weeks after your paper questionnaires arrive for scanning.
The Web Survey	can be administered either with your campus managing the email notification process, or for ease of use, you can elect to have HERI manage the email notifications to students. A web survey can be more convenient for both you and your students. Our web portal allows you maximum flexibility in setting email notification and reminder dates, customized, “welcome” and “thank you” pages, customized email notifications, and input of additional questions. Throughout the administration, you can obtain updates on your response rate. Your survey data is available the day after a student completes the questionnaire.
The Paper & Web Survey Combination	enables your institution to enhance its response rate by using both methodologies for maximum exposure. Students may complete either version.

Web Survey Features

• HERI can send customizable email notifications (including reminders) to your students
• Customizable “Welcome” and “Thank you” Screens
• Upload your own additional questions

Institutional Profile
In December, campuses receive a detailed report profiling freshman responses from their institutions. This report provides an in-depth profile of freshmen men, freshmen women and all freshmen. In addition, the report includes separate profiles of transfer and part-time students. Finally, the report provides comparative normative data for freshmen entering similar types of institutions.

In addition to the campus profile report, and to facilitate further institutional analyses, CIRP survey results are available in the following electronic files:

Standard Data Services
These are included for each institution as a standard part of the CIRP Freshman survey participation.

• Data files
  Institutions will receive a file containing the individual responses of their respondents in a format designed for statistical analysis or for merging with other institutional data bases (such as transcript files).
• Reports on Spreadsheet
  Institutions will receive exact copies of the printed campus profiles in EXCEL spreadsheet format. With the results in computer-readable format, reader-friendly charts and graphs can be easily constructed.

Special Data Services
These can be ordered using the CIRP Data Services Order Form.

• Data Merge
  HERI will upon request merge the contents of a CIRP data file with a data file provided by an institution. The merge is effected using Social Security Number or local Institution ID as a key. Merged files can be used for deeper secondary analyses of the CIRP data, retention analysis, etc.
• 'Peer Group' Report
  An institution can order a report in Excel spreadsheet format comparing its results to the aggregated results of any five or more participating institutions. Specialized institutions for which the standard CIRP comparison groups are not sufficient (such as women’s colleges, engineering schools, etc.), or institutions that normally compare themselves to a specific "peer group", can use this report to create their own comparison groups.
• Group Code Report (formerly known as "Special Breakout Report ")
  Compare up to 190 subsets of students by taking advantage of the group code grids on the CIRP survey instrument. HERI will produce reports in EXCEL spreadsheet format containing the results for respondents that marked each group code.
• Other Special Reports
  HERI can produce an institutional profile (in EXCEL spreadsheet format) broken out by virtually any variable

FEES
Basic costs include an institutional participation fee of $675 plus a graduated survey processing fee structure. The institutional participation fee covers all the costs for the data collection, data processing, as well as preparation of campus reports; and includes all shipping costs (unless expedited shipping is necessary, in which case it is billed to your institution), your institutional profile in Excel spreadsheet format, as well as the raw survey data file in .DAT or SPSS format. Additional services are available at an additional cost.

The following table is the breakdown of the fees associated with the CIRP Freshman Survey:

STANDARD COSTS
Participation Fee	$675
Processing Fee	Price if registered by 7/31/09	Price if registered after 7/31/09
	$2.00/per processed survey (first 500)	$2.50/per processed survey (first 500)
	$1.50/per processed survey (501-1000)	$2.00/per processed survey (501-1000)
	$1.00/per processed survey (1001 or more)	$1.50/per processed survey (1001 or more)
OPTIONAL COSTS
Customized Welcome and Thank You Pages (for Web Administrations)		FREE
Integrated additional questions (for Web Administrations)		$300
Email distribution to students (for Web Administrations)		$325
Real-time Data Analysis		$100
† Participants in the 2009 Freshman Survey that register for both the 2010 Your First College Year Survey (YFCY) AND the 2009-2010 College Senior Survey (CSS) will receive $100 off the Participation Fee for both the YFCY and the CSS! You will not be billed for the reduced participation fee until you complete registration for both the YFCY and CSS. This opportunity is available during the registration process.

Your campus will only be charged for the surveys/log-in codes that are processed by our survey vendor. Unused surveys/log-in codes will not be billed

  Click here for a calculator to help estimate your costs.

Billing Policy
Upon registration, institutions are sent one bill for the participation fee. After each institution completes their survey administration and returns the data for processing, the per-survey processing fees are calculated and a second bill is sent to each institution for their respective processing charges. Institutions are also billed separately for any Data Service Orders they may place, and these bills are sent out after the completion and fulfillment of each Data Service Order.

Cancellations Policy
You may cancel without penalty up to the time that the questionnaires you have ordered have been mailed to you. If the questionnaires have already been mailed and you return (at your expense) the entire shipment unmarked, you will not be charged the full participation fee, but will be charged a cancellation fee of $100. If you wish to cancel but cannot return the entire shipment unmarked, you will be charged the full participation fee.

Cancellation Policy for Schools Doing Web Administration
You may cancel without penalty up to the time that the unique web log-in codes have been sent to your institution, or distributed per your institution's direction. If the web log-in codes have already been sent to your institution or distributed via HERI's email distribution service to your intended survey participants, you will be charged a cancellation fee of $100. In addition, if HERI has provided any customized services at your request (e.g., incorporated on-line additional questions, etc), you will also be responsible for the full cost of these services.

Yes, for an additional fee. Please check the respective survey overview pages for the exact fee amount.

Related Links: TFS Overview, YFCY Overview, CSS Overview, Faculty Survey Overview

Only web administered surveys have this option, and it is at an additional cost. Otherwise you must distribute the questions to the students separately with instructions on how to fill in the answers on the survey form. Please check the respective survey overview pages for the exact fee amount.

Related Links: TFS Overview, YFCY Overview, CSS Overview, Faculty Survey Overview

No, your institution will instruct the students what to enter (if anything). Please note, however, that if nothing is entered in the ID# field, it will be next to impossible to link respondants in any of the follow-up CIRP surveys.

As of September 2007, all Research Approval and Certification of Research Use forms are to be completed online via the CIRP Online Portal.

This varies from campus to campus. HERI does not require an IRB member to complete the RAF; any appropriate campus representative may complete the form. However, your institution may have rules about who can complete such forms - so please check with your local IRB.

It depends. If your institution is canceling participation in the survey, then please return all forms in the original box to the vendor where they came from to avoid being charged the full participation fee. Otherwise, we do not want unused forms. Do not attempt to reuse forms next year as the survey changes each year. Please dispose of unused forms responsibly.

Traditionally we used Social Security Number as the student ID, though schools had the option of instructing students to enter their local school ID#. As preference for using student ID's grew, HERI changed the language on the survey forms, but the same rules still apply

1. You can instruct the students to enter anything you want (SSN, ID#, birthday)
2. Make sure to instruct students to use the same type of ID in follow up surveys to facilitate linking longitudinal data

Please refer to the calendar in our forum and the Administrative Guidelines for specific dates. In general, there are 9 steps:

1. Register your institution for the survey, ordering surveys/log-on IDs to arrive a week before you plan on administering.
2. Set up a PO to pay for the participation fee. You may also include projected processing fees on this PO.
3. Complete the online Research Approval Form (RAF) stating whether or not IRB approval was required on your campus.
4. Administer the surveys.
5. Return surveys to our vendor (you can use the boxes they came in) remembering to include the Transmittal Form in the boxes.
6. Fill in the online Administration Report Form (ARF).
7. Order any additional data services you may desire.
8. Set up a PO to pay for processing fees and/or additional data services.
9. Receive survey results from HERI.

Your participation fee includes:

• participation in the current year survey
• any costs involved in mailing surveys to your institution (unless expedited shipping is necessary, in which case it is billed to your institution),
• your Institutional Profile (Report on Excel Spreadsheet), and
• the Data File (in SPSS and raw formats).

Freshmen Survey participants also receive a copy of The American Freshmen: National Norms publication; and Faculty Survey participants also receive a copy of The American College Teacher: National Norms.

There are two invoices you will receive; one when you first sign up for the participation fee and one at the end of administration for the processing fees. Please check the individual survey overview pages for more info on pricing structure. Any additional Data Services that your institution has ordered will be billed for separately when services are rendered. (See Data Services Order Forms for more detailed information about Additional Data Services).

Yes, HERI does offer trends reports and datafiles for The Freshmen Survey only. To place a trends order for you institution, please use the order form linked here.

Please follow the directions given in the Researcher’s Tools section.

On all surveys from 2007 on, data services will be ordered via the web portal. For orders on older surveys please use the archived DSOs available under Data Services Order Forms.

Generally speaking, institutions should expect to receive their results (aka institutional profile) from each survey within approximately 6 weeks from the close of survey. The official survey close date is posted in the administrative guidelines for each respective survey, as well as online in the HERI forum.

More than you need. We do not charge based on how many forms you order, but on how many completed surveys you return.

While we do still mail out "invitations," one is not needed in order to sign up for any HERI surveys. All survey registrations are now done exclusively on-line through the web via the CIRP web portal.

There is not an actual deadline for registering. However, all institution must complete survey administration by the official survey close date (this may be found in the Administrative Guidelines for each respective survey). You can register up until a week before the survey administration closes, as long as you complete survey administration by the official survey administration close date. To avoid expedited shipping being billed to your institution, please order your surveys at least 10 business days before they are needed.

Registration pages for each survey usually go up about a month or two before the survey administration period officially starts.

• The CIRP Freshman survey is usually administered annually during Summer or the start of Fall, as it is given to freshmen who are just beginning at their institution. So look to be able to register in December.
• The Your First College Year (YFCY) and College Senior Survey (CSS) are usually administered annually at the end of the school year, so registration for these two surveys typically go live around some time during the Fall.
• The HERI Faculty Survey is administered tri-annually during the Fall, so expect to be able to register in the late Summer.