Here are some of the best questions for a high school senior student survey about college readiness, plus actionable tips on how to generate them effectively. We use Specific to build comprehensive, conversational surveys in seconds—give it a try to generate your own survey.
Best open-ended questions for college readiness surveys
Open-ended questions help seniors express genuine opinions, concerns, and hopes—highlighting the real story behind the stats. Use them when you want honest insights or when you’re exploring unknown challenges or goals among students.
What are your biggest concerns about starting college?
How do you define being “ready” for college in your own words?
What kind of support or resources do you wish you had to feel more prepared for college?
Describe a skill or habit you believe will be most helpful for your college success.
Tell us about a challenge you anticipate facing during your first year of college—and how you hope to overcome it.
If you could change one thing about your high school preparation, what would it be?
What experiences in high school contributed most to your academic readiness for college?
How do you manage stress or stay motivated academically? Tell us what works for you.
What advice would you give to younger students to help them get ready for college?
Is there anything you feel anxious or unprepared for that hasn’t been addressed in your classes or counseling?
These questions open the door to candid responses—which is crucial, considering that more than 80% of high school seniors feel “very” or “mostly” academically prepared, even though test scores show a persistent gap between perception and reality. [1]
Single-select multiple-choice questions that work
Single-select multiple-choice questions are ideal when you need to quantify readiness or spotlight unmet needs in a structured way. They’re also great for sparking a conversation—sometimes it’s easier to pick from focused options first, which then leads naturally to deeper questions as a follow-up.
Question: Which area do you feel least prepared for as you enter college?
Academic workload
Time management
Social adjustment
Financial independence
Other
Question: How confident are you in your ability to manage finances in college?
Very confident
Somewhat confident
Neutral
Not very confident
Not at all confident
Question: What type of guidance did you find most helpful in preparing for college applications?
School counselor support
Parental advice
Online resources
Peer discussion
Other
When to follow up with "why?" We recommend following up multiple-choice selections with “why?” whenever you want to uncover the reasoning or stories behind an answer. For example: if a student selects “academic workload” as their biggest worry, add: “Can you tell us more about why academic workload concerns you?” This approach shines a light on nuances hidden behind simple choices—so you get insights, not just numbers.
When and why to add the “Other” choice? Always include “Other” when there’s a possibility a student's experience doesn't fit preset options. Following up here often uncovers hidden struggles or untapped strengths that standardized questions miss. Even with structured questions, follow-ups can prompt surprising responses—an essential benefit in these surveys.
Should you ask an NPS question about college readiness?
NPS (Net Promoter Score) asks students, on a scale from 0-10, how likely they are to recommend their high school’s college preparation to others. This metric, widely used in education for benchmarking, gives a powerful readout on overall satisfaction and advocacy. When over 65% of first-year college undergraduates wind up in remedial courses, even though most students believe they’re ready, the gap documented by NPS can spark real change. [3]
If you want to include an NPS question in your survey, you can generate a ready-to-use NPS survey with Specific in one click.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-ups are where the magic happens. With Specific’s automatic follow-up questions, our AI digs deeper in real time, just like a smart interviewer would. By clarifying, probing, and encouraging students to elaborate, these dynamic questions surface the full context behind answers—making open-ended feedback much richer than static forms ever could.
Student: “I’m worried about managing time.”
AI follow-up: “What do you think will be the biggest challenge in managing your time at college?”
If we didn’t follow up, we’d miss out on specifics: is it about balancing classes, social life, or work? Without this, the response is ambiguous and loses value.
How many follow-ups to ask? In practice, 2-3 smart follow-ups are enough to get to the heart of most topics. With Specific, you can set precisely how persistent the AI should be—and allow students to skip ahead once the essential detail is captured.
This makes it a conversational survey, not just a static questionnaire. Students feel heard; it’s a real dialogue.
AI makes survey analysis easy: Even with lots of unstructured answers, you can analyze survey responses with AI. Summaries, themes, and key takeaways are at your fingertips within seconds, with no manual coding required. The AI survey analysis chat lets you ask context-rich questions directly about your survey results.
These automated follow-up questions change the survey game—experience it yourself by generating a survey and seeing how natural the conversation can be.
How to prompt ChatGPT (or any GPT) to create survey questions
Want to brainstorm on your own, using AI? Try this prompt first to get started:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for a high school senior student survey about college readiness.
But the more context you give, the better the questions. For example:
Our school wants to better prepare seniors for college success. Most students say they’re ready, but standardized test data and remediation rates indicate otherwise. Please draft 10 open-ended questions we can use in a survey to uncover gaps and actionable needs.
Once you have a selection of questions, ask AI to organize them into categories:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Choose your main priorities, then go deeper with:
Generate 10 follow-up questions for each of these categories: Academic Skills, Social Adjustment, Financial Preparedness.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey goes beyond fill-in-the-blank forms—it feels like a chat with a smart, attentive interviewer. Instead of firing the same static questions at everyone, the system responds based on what’s been shared before, digging deeper or clarifying as needed. This is what makes the conversational survey approach far richer for high school senior student feedback on college readiness.
Manual Surveys | AI-Generated Conversational Surveys |
|---|---|
Static question order | Dynamic, context-aware flow |
No follow-up probing | Asks clarifying follow-up questions live |
Hard to analyze qualitative data | AI analyzes, summarizes, and identifies key themes instantly |
Boring, form-like experience | Feels like a real conversation—students open up |
Why use AI for high school senior student surveys? AI-powered surveys meet students where they are. More than 63% of U.S. teens already use AI-powered text generators for school assignments, so an AI survey feels familiar, approachable, and less intimidating than a generic form. [8]
If you want to start quickly or need a step-by-step guide, check out this detailed article on how to build a high school senior student survey about college readiness before you dive in. Specific’s platform stands out for making AI survey creation simple, conversational, and genuinely engaging—for both creators and respondents.
See this college readiness survey example now
Don’t wait to get real insights from your students—see a conversational survey in action and uncover what truly drives college readiness. Experience the difference in depth, clarity, and engagement that comes with conversational surveys powered by AI.