Here are some of the best questions for a student survey about academic advising, along with tips on how to create them. If you want to quickly build a conversational survey for students about academic advising, you can generate it in seconds with Specific.
What are the best open-ended questions for student survey about academic advising?
Open-ended questions let students share their real experiences, thoughts, and needs—in their own words. While they often take more effort to answer and may result in higher nonresponse rates (on average 18%, sometimes over 50% for specific questions according to Pew Research Center [1]), the depth and value of these responses can’t be overstated. Use open-ended questions when you want to truly understand the student’s journey and uncover feedback you can’t predict. Students consistently say they value when advisors use technology to personalize and enhance interactions, not just automate them [2].
What do you appreciate most about your academic advising experience here?
Describe a time when your advisor helped you overcome a challenge. What made that experience meaningful?
Are there areas where you wish your advisor would support you more? Please explain.
What could academic advising do differently to help you achieve your goals?
How well does your advisor understand your academic and personal interests?
Can you share any frustrating experiences you’ve had with academic advising?
What resources or information do you wish your advisor provided more proactively?
How has academic advising helped (or failed to help) you make important decisions about your studies?
What would make you more likely to seek out your advisor for support?
If you could improve one thing about the academic advising process, what would it be and why?
The best single-select multiple-choice questions for student survey about academic advising
Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect when you need to quantify opinions quickly or want to start a conversation with easy “in” questions. Sometimes it’s less daunting for a student to pick a choice than to write out a whole story. Once you know where students stand, you can dig deeper—usually with a targeted follow-up question to unlock more context and feedback.
Question: How often do you meet with your academic advisor each semester?
Never
Once
2-3 times
More than 3 times
Question: Overall, how satisfied are you with the guidance you receive from academic advising?
Very satisfied
Somewhat satisfied
Neutral
Somewhat dissatisfied
Very dissatisfied
Question: What is your preferred method for communicating with your advisor?
Email
In-person
Video call
Instant messaging/chat
Other
When to follow up with "why?" If you get a response like "Somewhat dissatisfied," don’t settle. Use a follow-up like, “Why do you feel that way?” These follow-ups turn quantitative answers into actionable insights—for example, learning that students want easier scheduling, or that they don’t find responses timely.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? For questions like preferred communication method, adding "Other" helps you discover unexpected channels students might use. Always ask a follow-up (“Please specify”)—these surprise insights lead to the kind of improvements you’d miss otherwise.
It’s important to balance open and closed formats. Research shows one in three first-year students rarely met with an advisor, which can highlight service gaps better captured through structured questions [3].
NPS (Net Promoter Score) for student survey about academic advising
NPS, or Net Promoter Score, measures how likely a student is to recommend academic advising to friends or peers. It gives you a clear, standardized metric you can track over time—and it’s easy for students to answer in just a tap. For academic advising, it’s a quick way to gauge advocacy and identify both promoters and detractors, so you can tailor your improvement efforts. You can create an NPS survey for students here.
The power of follow-up questions
If you want richer, clearer answers, you need to follow up. Automated follow-up questions—like the ones Specific provides—ask for details or clarification in real time, just like an expert interviewer. As automated AI follow-up questions show, responses become more informative, relevant, specific, and clear when the survey “digs” for context [4]. Plus, you skip the endless back-and-forth by email or trying to schedule calls.
Student: “I’m not happy with my current advising.”
AI follow-up: “What would have made your advising experience more helpful for you?”
How many followups to ask? Typically, 2-3 followups are enough to clarify or enrich the answer. With Specific, you can set the max, and allow students to skip when they’ve said all they wanted.
This makes it a conversational survey: the dynamic back-and-forth ensures students feel heard—it’s a chat, not a cold form.
AI-powered survey analysis: Even with lots of unstructured student replies, it’s easy to analyze responses using AI-powered response analysis. The AI will spot core themes and summarize key pain points in seconds.
Curious? Try generating a survey now and see how much more direct and insightful the feedback feels when follow-ups are part of the conversation.
How to write prompts for ChatGPT to generate student survey questions about academic advising
AI tools are great for brainstorming question ideas. Start simple, but always provide deeper context for better results.
For a first round, you can prompt:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for student survey about academic advising.
AI delivers richer questions if you explain the audience or your specific needs. A more detailed prompt might be:
I manage student services at a mid-sized college. Our goal is to identify what hinders students from accessing academic advising and what would make these services more impactful. Suggest 10 open-ended questions that would help us uncover pain points and actionable improvements.
To organize the output, follow up with:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Then pick the categories you care about (“advisor accessibility,” “support for academic decisions,” etc.) and ask:
Generate 10 questions for categories like advisor accessibility, resource awareness, and student-advisor communication.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey feels just like chatting with a real person—instead of clicking boxes or scrolling through endless forms, students answer in their own words, with AI probing gently for more detail when needed. The AI asks, listens, clarifies, and genuinely wants to understand, so the data is richer and more actionable.
Manual Survey Creation | AI-Generated Conversational Survey |
|---|---|
Brainstorm every question yourself and write logic manually | Describe your goal, audience, and context; AI drafts smart and relevant questions |
Responses can be incomplete or hard to interpret | AI asks follow-ups for clarity and context, leading to richer, clearer data |
Hard to keep it short, engaging, and mobile-friendly | Feels like chat, works great on mobile, and keeps students engaged |
Analysis means reading lots of raw text | AI summarizes, distills trends, and lets you chat with your data |
Why use AI for student surveys? You collect more relevant, high-quality feedback faster, without the usual analysis headache. AI survey makers like Specific even let you edit the survey just by chatting with the AI (see how AI editing works), and create a conversational, friendly experience for students. For more step-by-step guidance, check out how to create a student survey about academic advising.
With Specific, the conversational survey flow and automatic follow-ups boost both response rates and the quality of insight. It’s the smoothest way to make the feedback process seamless and meaningful for everyone involved.
See this academic advising survey example now
Start collecting genuine student feedback—discover what really matters in academic advising with natural, conversational surveys that deliver depth and clear, actionable insights fast.