Best questions for college graduate student survey about advisor relationship

Here are some of the best questions to ask in a college graduate student survey about advisor relationships, along with tips on how to craft them for meaningful feedback. If you want to build your own survey in seconds, you can use Specific’s AI survey generator to create a custom conversational survey instantly.

Best open-ended questions for advisor relationship surveys

Open-ended questions unlock richer perspectives and let college graduate students share their unique experiences in their own words. These questions are perfect when you want honest, deeper context instead of pre-defined answers.

• What aspects of your relationship with your primary advisor have most positively influenced your graduate experience?

• Can you describe a specific challenge you faced with your advisor, and how it was addressed?

• What would you most like to change or improve in your advisor–student relationship?

• How does your advisor support your academic and personal growth?

• What forms of communication with your advisor work best for you, and why?

• How does your advisor include you in research or academic decision-making?

• What advice would you give to someone just starting to work with your advisor?

• How does your advisor provide feedback, and how do you prefer to receive it?

• In what ways has your advisor helped you prepare for your post-graduation career?

• What is the single most important thing your advisor could do to better support you?

By emphasizing open-ended responses, you allow for authentic stories and viewpoints to surface, and you can often detect patterns—such as whether some students feel power imbalances. In fact, a recent 2025 study highlighted that first-generation doctoral students were significantly less likely to describe their advisor relationships as equal or collegial compared to their peers, pointing to the value of open narratives in understanding differences[1].

Top single-select multiple-choice questions to quantify experiences

Single-select multiple-choice questions are ideal when you need to quantify trends across many graduate students. They're great for starting a conversation, especially if respondents are short on time or need prompts to think through their answers. Once you have these top-level choices, you can follow up for deeper insights.

Question: How would you describe the overall quality of your relationship with your advisor?

• Excellent

• Good

• Fair

• Poor

Question: How often do you communicate one-on-one with your advisor?

• Weekly or more

• Bi-weekly

• Monthly

• Less than monthly

Question: What is your preferred method of communication with your advisor?

• Email

• In-person meetings

• Video call

• Other

When to follow up with “why?” If a graduate student selects “Fair” for relationship quality, always probe—“Why did you choose this rating?” This helps you understand specific factors driving their experience and reveals detail you’d miss if you only had the surface answer.

When and why to add the “Other” choice? When you think your options might not capture everyone’s reality, include “Other.” The rich follow-up responses often reveal new issues, modes of mentoring, or preferences you hadn’t considered—essential for inclusive feedback.

NPS for advisor relationships—and why it fits

NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a powerful way to measure loyalty and long-term satisfaction, even in academic advising. Ask, “How likely are you to recommend your advisor to another student?” Use a 0-10 scale where 0 is “Not at all likely” and 10 is “Extremely likely,” then follow up based on the score with a question such as, “What was the main reason for your rating?”

NPS gives you a clear, quantifiable metric—and, with smart follow-ups, surfaces underlying drivers and blockers. This approach is gaining traction in higher education feedback, especially with so many professionals expecting to expand their use of AI in their work[2]. You can instantly generate an NPS survey for advisors in Specific if you want to measure at scale.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions are the engine of meaningful, conversational surveys. They transform routine answers into context-rich stories. Specific’s AI follow-up feature listens actively—just like a skilled interviewer—asking “why,” clarifying details, or probing for real-life examples. Instead of shallow data, you get the full backstory—automatically, in real time.

• College graduate student: “My advisor helps sometimes.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you describe a recent time when your advisor provided helpful support? What made it effective or not?”

How many follow-ups to ask? About 2–3 are usually enough for rich context. The key is to stop once you get the needed information or let users skip to the next question. Specific’s settings make this easy—you control the depth of probing so it never gets overwhelming.

This makes it a conversational survey: Follow-ups make the experience feel like a helpful chat, not a rigid form. Respondents relax, open up, and share more honestly.

AI-powered response analysis: Even if you collect lots of open text, it’s easy to analyze responses with AI. AI will organize and summarize insights so you see actionable themes, not just a wall of text.

Automated follow-ups are a breakthrough—try generating a survey and see how much more you learn when you don’t have to chase unclear answers later.

How to prompt AI for survey questions about advisor relationships

With tools like Specific or ChatGPT, asking for great questions is as simple as giving a clear prompt. Try starting with:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for College Graduate Student survey about Advisor Relationship.

If you want even better results, give AI more context—describe your role, what you want to achieve, or unique campus details:

I am gathering feedback from graduate students at an urban research university to improve our academic advising support system. Suggest 10 insightful open-ended questions for a survey about advisor relationships.

Once you have your list, ask AI to organize it for you:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Now, pick categories you need most (for example, “communication,” “career support,” “conflict resolution”) and drill down:

Generate 10 questions for categories communication and career support.

What is a conversational survey?

Conversational surveys feel like a chat—not a tedious form. Instead of a static list of questions all at once, a conversational survey lets the AI adapt to each answer, ask smart follow-ups, and guide the flow naturally. The result is higher engagement and more useful responses—students feel heard, not interrogated.

Why use AI for college graduate student surveys? Because it saves you hours on setup, delivers a better experience for students, and lets you focus on what matters—insights for continuous improvement. The research backs this up: by 2025, 86% of students globally are already using AI tools in their studies, and 54% use them weekly[3]. You want your feedback collection to match their expectations.

Looking for a full walk-through? Check out our how-to guide on creating college graduate student surveys. With Specific, building conversational surveys is as easy as chatting—and you’ll notice right away the improvement in both response quality and analysis. The user experience is smooth and personal for both survey creators and respondents, so everyone wins.

See this Advisor Relationship survey example now

Unlock deeper insights from your graduate students by using a conversational AI-powered survey to explore advisor relationships. Start building your tailored AI survey today and see how much more you can learn in just a few minutes—while making feedback collection seamless for everyone.