The CIRP Freshman Survey is designed to be of immediate use to institutions. Participating institutions receive a detailed profile of their entering freshman class, as well as national normative data for students in similar types of institutions (e.g., public four-year colleges, moderately selective Protestant colleges, highly selective Catholic colleges, public two-year colleges). These campus profile reports, together with the national normative profile, provide important data that are useful in a variety of program and policy areas:

• admissions and recruitment;
• academic program development and review;
• institutional self-study and accreditation activities;
• public relations and development;
• institutional research and assessment;
• retention studies; and
• longitudinal research about the impacts of campus 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) as part of the basic participation costs.

The freshman survey questionnaire is appropriate for students in all institutions. The four-page survey instrument covers a broad array of issues:

• demographic characteristics
• expectations of the college experience
• secondary school experiences
• degree goals and career plans
• college finances
• attitudes, values, and life goals
• reasons for attending college

The freshman survey instrument repeats items from previous years to help institutions assess trends in the characteristics, attitudes, values, and aspirations of their entering freshmen. At the same time, the freshman survey is revised annually to reflect the changing needs of institutional participants. Moreover, the survey form provides space for participating campuses to add up to 21 local option items to those that already appear on the questionnaire.

Click here for a copy of the 2006 survey instrument.

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

In addition to the campus profile report, the CIRP offers a number of additional services:

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

• Data files
  Institutions can purchase 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 can purchase 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 Breakout Report
  If an institution has taken advantage of the group code grids on the CIRP survey instrument, HERI can produce reports in EXCEL spreadsheet format containing the results for respondents that marked each group code.
• '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.

Special Data Services
These may be ordered by contacting HERI’s Associate Director for Operations.

• 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.
• Other Special Reports
  HERI can produce an institutional profile (in EXCEL spreadsheet format) broken out by virtually any variable

Institutions planning to participate in the annual survey notify the CIRP project office. Registration consists of a request to participate, plus notification of (a) the number of forms needed (based on the number of anticipated new freshmen and entering transfer students), and (b) the date the forms must arrive on campus (a minimum of one week prior to the scheduled administration date). On most campuses students complete the survey during freshman orientation. Most institutions allow about one hour for survey administration. The best results occur when the survey is administered in a proctored setting.

The cost of participating in the CIRP Freshman Survey includes a basic participation fee of $400 plus a $2.00 per returned survey for the first 500 surveys; $1.50 per returned survey (from 501-1,000); $1.00 per returned survey (after 1,000).

Click here for a calculator to help estimate your costs.

Campuses can register for the 2006 CIRP Freshman Survey using our online registration form or by downloading our registration brochure. The 2006 instrument is now available. Click here for a review copy.

When college staff use both the CIRP and the CSS surveys, they accumulate valuable data on their students. These data can be used for a multitude of purposes, including conducting accreditation self-studies; satisfying state-mandated performance measures; evaluating college programs and services; and monitoring the impact of your institution on your students. Here are some examples of how institutions throughout the country use these two surveys together, surveying students when they first arrive on campus and anywhere from one to ten years later.

• A college in the Midwest compares CIRP to CSS data on students’ self-reported skill development during college. Staff members use this data for re-accreditation purposes.
• An institution in the East uses the CIRP and the CSS to develop student profiles that are shared with new faculty during their orientation. New faculty really appreciate getting a sense of both students overall and of how students’ expectations and experiences change during college.
• A college in the South evaluates the success of its leadership development program by examining CSS data to determine whether the attitudes and behaviors regarding leadership have changed for students who have gone through the program. They base this change by looking at responses to the ESS for these students.
• An institution in the Midwest describes the combination of the CIRP and the CSS as "extremely powerful". They use these surveys to determine differences among student experiences based on such qualifiers as major and race. They are able to determine how the institution impacts these students, after controlling for the students’ backgrounds.
• At an institution in the West, staff compared students in a freshman-cluster curriculum to other freshmen. They found interesting differences in students’ self-reported academic abilities that they can report back to the faculty teaching in the clusters.
• An engineering college in the West links CSS data with CIRP data and is especially interested in the experience of women at their institution.
• An institution in the East has found that students’ values do not change much during college, but that their actual experiences in college are often quite different from their pre-college expectations. Staff members use these data in enrollment management and strategic planning.
• A college in the South evaluates the success of its service learning program by examining changes in students’ volunteer attitudes and behaviors from students’ freshman year (using CIRP) to their senior year (using CSS).
• An engineering college in the West found that their entering students had low social self-confidence and that they still had low social self-confidence in their senior year. As a result, staff members have instituted a freshman seminar that will include topics on conflict resolution, prejudices, and mental health issues. Administrators and faculty will continue to use the CIRP and the CSS to track their students’ progress with this intervention.

HERI uses the following algorithm to determine whether or not a CIRP Freshman Survey respondent should be considered a first-time full-time freshman. Please note that the question numbers referred to below are based on the 2002 Freshman Survey.

RULE #1
IF a respondent indicates that he/she did not graduate from high school in the current year (Question #4) AND, IF the respondent reports having taken courses for credit at his/her freshman institution (Question #11) OR the respondent reports having taken any courses (for credit or not for credit) at any other postsecondary institution (Question #12) *,
THEN the respondent is considered “not first-time” (shown on the institutional profiles as a “transfer”).

RULE #2
IF a respondent fails the tests in Rule #1 (i.e., is considered a first-time respondent) AND indicates he/she is enrolling as a part-time respondent (Question #5),
THEN the respondent is considered “not full-time” (shown on the institutional profiles as “parttime”).

RULE #3
IF a respondent fails the tests in Rule #1 AND Rule #2,
THEN the respondent is considered a “first-time full-time freshman.”

RULE #4
IF the tests in Rule #1 or Rule #2 can not be performed because the respondent did not respond to any or all of Question #s 4,5, 11 and 12,
THEN the respondent is considered to have failed the test. That is, the algorithm assumes that the respondent is a first-time full-time freshman unless he/she passes the tests in Rule #1 or Rule #2. **

* The structure of Rule #1 is designed to account for respondents who took college courses during their high school career by requiring that they took at least one year off between high school graduation and college entry in order to pass the test. It is possible that a student who took college courses in high school and took a year or more off before entering college would incorrectly be considered a “not first-time” student, but HERI deems that to be a very low-probability occurrence.

** Please note that this Rule might cause a person to be considered a first-time full-time freshman when he/she in fact isn’t.

1 The broad categories of institutional type are defined as follows:

University	an institution that awards a substantial number of doctoral-level degrees in at least five different disciplines. The CIRP “university” is roughly equivalent to the Carnegie “Research” and “Doctoral” designations.
Four-year College	an institution that awards master- and/or bachelor-level degrees. Corresponds Equivalent to the Carnegie “Master’s (Comprehensive)” and “Baccalaureate (Liberal Arts)” designations.
Two-year College	an institution that awards associate-level degrees.

2 Selectivity is defined as the average SAT Composite Score of the entering class.

3 Institutions with unknown selectivity are grouped with the low-selectivity when computing the National Norms.

4 Two-year colleges and historically Black colleges & universities are not differentiated by selectivity.

These two files show each institution's participation history from 1966. Participation for a given year is indicated by an "@" or an "x". Institutions providing data judged to be representative of their first-time full-time freshman class and included in the national norms report are indicated by an "@". Campuses that participate in the survey but whose data were not included are indicated by an "x". Institutions that did not participate in a given year are indicated by a "-".

	Participation History Arranged Alphabetically
	Participation History Arranged By Stratification Cell