Here are some of the best questions for a community college student survey about transfer readiness and support, plus tips on how to create them. You can generate and customize your own smart survey in seconds with Specific, using industry-leading conversational AI to gather richer insights.
Best open-ended questions for community college student transfer readiness and support surveys
Open-ended questions give students the space to share details in their own words, helping us understand their unique experiences and challenges. They're perfect when you want nuanced, in-depth, or unexpected feedback that rigid choices can’t capture. This is essential for complex topics like transfer readiness, where one-size-fits-all answers fall short.
What are your main goals for transferring to a four-year college or university?
What support or resources have been most helpful in your transfer journey so far?
Can you describe any obstacles you've encountered while preparing to transfer?
How did you decide which four-year institutions to consider?
What information or guidance do you wish had been available earlier in your transfer process?
How well do you feel community college staff communicate important transfer-related information to students?
Can you tell us about your experience with academic advising related to transfer planning?
What factors would make the transfer process less stressful or more straightforward for you?
What advice would you give to other students thinking about transferring?
Is there anything else you'd like to share about your transfer experience or what support would help most?
It’s worth noting that, despite strong aspirations, only about 33% of community college students transfer to a four-year institution, and just 16% finish a bachelor’s within six years, making it critical to dig beyond the surface for actionable insights into these barriers and supports. [1]
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for community college student transfer readiness and support surveys
Single-select multiple-choice questions shine when you need to quantify experiences or opinions—great for tracking trends, benchmarking, and making conversation easier for students who might not know where to start. They’re also useful when you plan to follow up and dig deeper based on their initial choice.
Question: How confident do you feel about your readiness to transfer to a four-year institution?
Very confident
Somewhat confident
Not very confident
Not at all confident
Question: Which transfer support service have you used in the past year?
Academic advising
Transfer workshops or events
Online transfer resources
I haven’t used any support services
Other
Question: What is your primary source of information about transferring?
Advisors/counselors
Peers or fellow students
College websites
Workshops or webinars
Family or friends
Other
When to follow up with "why?" If a student selects "Not very confident" in the transfer readiness question, always follow up: "What makes you feel less confident about your readiness to transfer?" This helps you uncover specific gaps or concerns. Following up converts dry statistics into meaningful stories behind the numbers—like the fact that half of transfer-aspiring community college students never even use transfer advising services! [6]
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Use "Other" for situations where your listed responses might not capture everyone’s experience—especially with diverse campus resources or family supports. Open-ended follow-ups can reveal new support mechanisms or obstacles you hadn’t considered at all, deepening your insights.
Using NPS-style questions for transfer readiness and support surveys
NPS (Net Promoter Score) questions make sense in a community college student transfer readiness context because they quickly reveal overall satisfaction and advocacy: "How likely are you to recommend your college’s transfer support services to a friend or classmate?" It's a single, powerful number that’s easy to track over time and segment by student groups. Low NPS scores can signal a need for better transfer advising, especially since less than half of students who intend to transfer ever complete the process. [2] You can instantly generate an NPS survey for transfer support to benchmark your program or services.
The power of follow-up questions
We see follow-up questions as the engine behind truly conversational surveys. By probing deeper in real time based on the student’s previous answer and full context, we unlock richer, actionable feedback—far beyond what static forms or checkboxes deliver. Learn more about automated follow-up questions and how they work.
Community College Student: "I felt overwhelmed by the transfer application process."
AI follow-up: "Can you share what specifically made the process overwhelming? Were there particular steps or requirements that were confusing?"
This approach avoids vague or incomplete answers—which is crucial when only 8% of transfer students follow that ideal “2+2” pathway. [7]
How many followups to ask? We’ve found that 2–3 targeted follow-ups are plenty for most survey flows, but sometimes less is more. Specific’s settings let you personalize this depth and even allow users to skip once you get the detail you need.
This makes it a conversational survey: instead of a static list, you’re having a dialogue—just like with a good advisor or peer mentor.
AI makes survey analysis easier: Even with all these open-ended and follow-up responses, our AI survey response analysis tools make it painless to summarize themes, surface trends, and find powerful quotes. You can analyze survey responses in minutes, rather than hours.
Automated follow-ups are a new frontier—we invite you to try generating a survey with Specific and see how seamless this feels.
How to prompt GPT for community college student transfer surveys
Want to generate your own tailored questions—maybe using ChatGPT or another AI survey builder? Start with a direct prompt:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for community college student survey about transfer readiness and support.
The secret to better results: add more context about your goals and your specific context. For example:
I'm working in the student affairs office at a large California community college. Our main goal is to improve the transfer pipeline, especially for low-income, Black, and Hispanic first-generation students. Suggest 10 open-ended questions to understand their biggest challenges and support needs for transferring.
Next, ask the AI to organize your questions by themes:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Then choose promising categories (such as “barriers,” “advising,” “family support”), and dive deeper:
Generate 10 questions for categories barriers, advising, and family support.
This scaffolded approach yields more focused, actionable questions customized to your own students.
What is a conversational survey?
Conversational surveys break away from lifeless web forms. Instead, they use chat-like, AI-powered interviews that feel more like talking to a real person—respondents open up, feedback becomes richer, and it’s easier to follow up on the fly. With AI-driven survey generators, you can create and launch these surveys quickly, iterating on question design or tone through a chat-driven editor.
Manual Surveys | AI-Generated Conversational Surveys |
Requires manual question writing, copying/pasting into form builders | Instantly generates survey from your prompt; customizable in chat |
Static; no smart probing or follow-ups | AI asks dynamic, context-aware follow-up questions in real time |
Hard to analyze open-ended responses at scale | AI summarizes themes, flags pain points, and answers custom analysis queries |
Often feels impersonal; lower engagement and completion | Feels friendly and intuitive; higher participation and richer insights |
Why use AI for community college student surveys? In transfer readiness research, uncovering why students don’t transfer—or what helped them persevere—means you need open conversations, not just checkboxes. AI survey tools like Specific deliver that at speed and scale. Looking for an AI survey example you can tweak? Check our guide to creating surveys for step-by-step instructions.
Specific’s AI conversational survey platform stands out with best-in-class user experience for both survey creators and students, leading to deeper, more actionable support insights at every step of the transfer pipeline.
See this transfer readiness and support survey example now
Transform how you gather insights—capture deeper student feedback, get instant smart follow-ups, and analyze open responses with real-time AI. Create your own conversational survey in minutes, and start closing the transfer support gap today with Specific.