CIRP Freshman Survey

For over 50 years, the CIRP Freshmen Survey (TFS) has provided data on incoming college students’ background characteristics, high school experiences, attitudes, behaviors, and expectations for college. The survey, created by Dr. Alexander “Sandy” Astin in 1966, has resided at the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA since 1973. To date, over 15 million students at over 1,900 institutions have participated in the survey.

Our mission as a research institute remains to “inform educational policy and promote institutional improvement through an increased understanding of higher education and its impact on college students.”

Registration for the 2018 CIRP Freshman Survey open February 15, 2018! Administer anytime between March 14 – October 10, 2018

Institutions who participated in the 2017 TFS Survey can access their 2017 data here:
Download 2017 TFS Data

About the CIRP Freshman Survey

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
Student demographic characteristics
Concerns about financing college

Many of the items on the CIRP Freshman Survey are pre-test questions that are then post-tested on CIRP follow-up surveys – Your First College Year (YFCY), Diverse Learning Environments (DLE), College Senior Survey (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.

Schools participating in the CIRP Freshman Survey receive an institutional profile, which includes your institutional results broken out by sex, full and part-time status, comparisons with other similar institutions, significance testing, effect sizes, CIRP Constructs and Theme reports, a data file of your student responses, a PowerPoint presentation, a Graduation Rate Calculator; and a monograph summarizing the national results.

Administering the Survey

Administered anytime between March 14 through October 10

The CIRP Freshman Survey is conducted before students start their college careers, and is available as early as March and as late as October. Most campuses conduct the survey during orientation and allow about one hour for survey administration. The best results occur when the survey is administered in a proctored setting.

Traditionally a paper survey, the CIRP Freshman survey is also available as a web survey. The CIRP Web Portal at www.cirpsurveys.org provides greater flexibility and ease of use when managing your survey administration.

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

The Survey Instrument

2018 TFS Instrument
2018 TFS Changes

Important Forms and Documentation

Administration Guidelines – Necessary information for schools concerning the administration of the CIRP Freshman Survey
Administration Timeline – Use the timeline to track general tasks required during a survey cycle
Checklist – Paper survey administration checklist
Survey Information Sheet – Copy of the informed consent given to survey respondents
Student Identifiers – Find out how student identifiers can help you merge data for longitudinal analyses
Additional Questions – Important information for campuses adding their own questions to the instrument
School Managed Email Distribution -Instructions for sending your email invitations directly from your institution
Invitation and Reminder Templates – Sample text for inviting your students to participate
Welcome and Thank You Text – Editable text for your welcome and thank you survey pages
Anti-Spam Guidelines – How to prevent survey invitation and reminders from CIRP being filtered out as bulk or junk mail
Group Codes – Comparing specific subgroups of your student sample
Confidentiality and Privacy – Protocol for ensuring the confidentiality and privacy of our data and suggestions about how to assure your students that their information is safe
Encouraging Participation Suggestions for increasing response rates
Promo Packs Instructions on how to use Promo Packs
Pre-notification Email Templates Editable text for your pre-notification emails
Survey Shipping Form – Use this form when you are sending forms back to the processing center
Data and Reporting – Descriptions of the institutional data and reporting institutions will receive from CIRP
UCLA IRB Approval Notice – Copy of the current UCLA IRB approval

Fees

You can find the survey fees for your institution by searching on our pricing page.

Survey Fees
The combined survey administration and registration fee is calculated based on total full-time equivalent (FTE) undergraduate enrollment (for student surveys) or full-time faculty (faculty/staff survey) with information obtained from the IPEDS database on September 1, 2017. Click here to determine the cost for your institution: https://heri.ucla.edu/pricing/

Optional Costs
-Customized Welcome and Thank You Pages: no additional fee
-Additional questions for web administration – 20 closed-ended and/or 5 open-ended: $350
-Additional questions for paper administration – 20 closed-ended: no additional fee
-Group Codes: no additional fee
-HERI-managed email distribution to students: $375
-School-managed email distribution: no additional fee

Billing Policy
HERI uses a two-step process for billing. First, within two weeks of receiving an order to administer one of our surveys from an authorized campus representative, we will send an invoice to that representative or the designated billing contact requesting payment for a $1,000 registration deposit. This registration deposit will be credited toward the total administration cost. Should needs on campus change, please read below to review our cancellation policy.

Second, approximately six weeks before the national administration closes for each respective survey (March 15 for the Diverse Learning Environments Survey and the Staff Climate Survey; May 15 for Your First College Year Survey and the College Senior Survey), we will send a second invoice for the remaining balance associated with each respective survey administration, including any optional services requested during the administration period (i.e., HERI-managed emails, additional questions on web-based surveys).

The costs for administering HERI’s surveys cover customer service support from HERI’s staff throughout the administration process, the full suite of campus reports (i.e., Institutional Profile Report, Construct Report, Theme Report, Executive Summary PowerPoint), preparation of the final dataset, and targeted consultation to help clarify or explain the results featured in each set of reports.

We will continue to invoice separately for any orders for data services or customized reports placed by authorized campus representatives, and we typically send those invoices within two weeks of fulfilling each order. Additionally, for campuses that have more specific needs related to developing more tailored surveys, generating a more comprehensive, in-depth analysis of their survey data, or creating a more comprehensive assessment of campus climate, HERI staff members are available for more extensive consulting partnerships. Please contact us at heri@ucla.edu for more information.

*Expedited payment is helpful because UCLA charges additional fees after invoices become 90 days
past due. If there are delinquency fees on your account, your payment will be applied to these charges first. The unpaid balance on the account will remain past due and will continue to accrue additional delinquency fees. Balances which remain unpaid for several months risk going to collections.

Cancellation Policy
Placing an order indicates your institution’s agreement to participate in the survey. HERI will refund $800 of the $1,000 deposit if a campus informs HERI in writing of its decision to cancel a survey administration by each survey’s respective cancellation cutoff date (March 15 for DLE and Staff Climate Survey; May 15 for YFCY and CSS). HERI will refund $200 of the $1,000 deposit for orders cancelled after the respective cutoff date. If your institution has received paper surveys, survey links, or distributed links via HERI’s email system prior to attempting to cancel the order, please refer to the Withdrawal Policy.

Withdrawal Policy

For Web Administrations
If the URL(s) have already been sent to the institution or distributed via HERI’s email distribution service to the sample of intended survey participants, the campus will forfeit the full $1,000 registration deposit. 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.

For Paper Administrations
If questionnaires have been shipped to or received by the institution prior to canceling the order, the institution will forfeit the entire $1,000 registration deposit unless all questionnaires are returned completely intact to our processing center. Once the unused questionnaires have been received and verified at our processing center, the campus will be entitled to a partial refund of its $1,000 registration deposit ($800 prior to March 15 for DLE and Staff/May 15 for YFCY and CSS; or $200 if received after the cutoff date(s).