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
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 / Withdrawal Policy
You can find the survey fees for your institution by searching on our pricing page.
Please contact us at heri@ucla.edu or 310-825-1925 for our withdrawal policy.
Registration for the 2018 CIRP Freshman Survey open February 15, 2018! Administer anytime between March 14 – October 10, 2018