Here are some of the best questions for a high school freshman student survey about mental health, plus tips on building them. With Specific, you can generate insightful, conversational surveys in seconds—no busywork required.
Best open-ended questions for student mental health surveys
Open-ended questions let freshmen express thoughts in their own words, helping us uncover real concerns and emotions that might not come up in straightforward polls or scales. They're great for exploring new areas or catching issues we hadn’t considered—especially in early conversations when trust and comfort matter.
What are some things at school that help you feel supported or happy?
Can you describe a time this year when you felt particularly stressed or anxious?
What activities or hobbies do you turn to when you’re feeling down?
If you could change one thing about your daily school routine to help your well-being, what would it be?
Who do you talk to when you’re struggling with your feelings or worries?
What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced transitioning to high school?
How has social media affected the way you feel about yourself?
In what situations have you found it hard to ask for help regarding your mental health?
What does a “good day” look like for you at school?
What advice would you give to other freshmen about handling stress or tough feelings?
These questions open the door to important stories and surprising feedback. And frankly, they’re needed: in 2023, 40% of high school students said they had persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and 20% seriously considered attempting suicide—a crisis we simply can’t ignore. [1]
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for freshman mental health surveys
Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect when we need to quantify answers or provide a gentle entry point for those who may not be ready to dive into deep conversations. Sometimes, it’s easier for a student to pick an option than to describe a personal struggle. These questions can also spur helpful follow-ups or reveal group-wide patterns worth digging into.
Question: How often do you feel stressed about schoolwork?
Almost never
Sometimes
Often
Almost always
Question: When you feel sad or anxious, who do you talk to first?
Friend or classmate
Parent or family member
Teacher or school counselor
I don't talk to anyone
Question: What do you feel is the biggest challenge to your mental health right now?
School pressure
Social relationships
Family issues
Bullying
Other
When to followup with "why?" If a student selects “I don’t talk to anyone,” it’s a signal to politely follow up: Why not? Is it about trust, fear, or something else? A brief “Can you share what makes it difficult to talk to someone?” opens up deeper understanding about the barriers students face—not just the surface stats.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? We always include “Other” to catch anything our options might miss. If multiple students choose it and specify their reasons, automated follow-up questions can surface trends or new challenges that don’t fit our assumptions, helping us support students even better.
The value is obvious: with 71.5% of students experiencing bullying at some level, and anxiety disorders impacting nearly one third of U.S. adolescents, it pays to cast a wide net.[6][7]
Should you use an NPS question in a student mental health survey?
NPS (Net Promoter Score) isn’t just for measuring brand loyalty. We can adapt it for student mental health by asking: “On a scale from 0–10, how likely are you to recommend that a friend talk to someone at our school if they are feeling down or struggling?” It’s a shortcut to measure trust in support systems and track improvements over time.
Higher or improving NPS means students trust their school’s mental health resources—vital, since only 55% of public schools offer proper diagnostic support. [8] You can grab a ready-made NPS survey for high school freshman students about mental health and tweak the wording as needed.
The power of follow-up questions
Specific’s automated follow-up questions are a game changer. They let us dig deeper, in real time, based on a student’s unique reply. This is at the heart of conversational surveys—uncovering full context, not just a first impression. You get richer insights without chasing people down for clarification.
Student: “Sometimes I feel stressed out about school stuff.”
AI follow-up: “What are some of the main situations or classes that trigger this stress for you?”
Student: “I don’t talk to anyone when I’m anxious.”
AI follow-up: “Is there something that makes it hard to reach out, or is it just not your style?”
Without follow-ups, those first responses are often too vague or leave us guessing. Automated probing, just like a seasoned interviewer, clarifies the “why” without making students feel interrogated.
How many followups to ask? Usually, 2–3 smart follow-ups are plenty. With Specific, you can set guardrails so the AI stops gently once you have the detail you need, or lets students skip ahead if they’re ready. The balance matters—no one wants to feel stuck in an endless chat.
This makes it a conversational survey: Each follow-up shapes the talk more like a real conversation, rather than stiff, impersonal forms. That’s where trust and honesty really start to grow.
AI-powered survey analysis: Even if you collect pages of text, it’s dead simple to analyze open-ended responses and spot big patterns with AI. All the context stays intact, but we skip the manual work.
Try building a survey with automated follow-ups—this is a new way to listen, and it’s much more rewarding.
How to prompt ChatGPT for better freshman mental health survey questions
If you want to use ChatGPT (or any AI) to brainstorm the best questions, start simple. Here’s a starter prompt:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for High School Freshman Student survey about Mental Health.
But the more context you give, the better your questions. Let’s add detail about our goal and audience:
I am designing a survey for high school freshmen to understand the challenges they face in their transition to high school, sources of school-related stress, and where they seek support. Suggest 10 open-ended questions that will surface both general concerns and unique personal experiences.
Once you have a draft list, organize it into themes:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Next, deepen your focus. For instance, if “social challenges” and “academic pressure” emerge, you might prompt:
Generate 10 questions for categories Social Challenges and Academic Pressure.
This approach—context → categories → focused prompts—builds a robust question set tailored for real students, not generic forms.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey is, at its core, a natural back-and-forth where every reply is treated as input for the next prompt—much like a real conversation, not a cold checklist. AI survey generation, especially how it’s done with Specific, takes this concept to the next level.
Here’s a quick comparison:
Manual Survey Creation | AI-Generated Conversational Survey |
|---|---|
- Brainstorm and write questions by hand - Analysis usually requires exporting raw data and manually reviewing open-ended responses | - Chat with AI to instantly create survey questions - Results are analyzed and summarized by AI—no data wrangling |
This means anyone can build a high-quality, engaging AI survey example—from scratch or with prebuilt templates—faster and better than before. Knowledge is transferred in the prompt, not locked in someone’s head.
Why use AI for high school freshman student surveys? Because the mental health landscape is changing fast. The impacts of social media, the aftermath of the pandemic, and the unique mix of stresses faced by freshmen aren’t always visible in old-fashioned forms. Our best shot at supporting these students is to listen actively, adapt quickly, and create a survey that feels like a conversation—not an interrogation.
Specific is built for this. It offers the best-in-class user experience for conversational surveys, making feedback a smoother process for both creators and respondents. The AI handles the structure and probing, so you can focus on listening and acting.
See this mental health survey example now
Get inspired by a ready-to-use survey that uncovers what matters most to freshmen. Create your own survey now and experience how fast, smart conversations can help support student wellbeing.