What Colleges Learn From SENSE

As SENSE is administered, colleges have real-time access to all survey responses, allowing leaders and campus teams to monitor patterns as data are collected and respond while the term is underway. Results are available through flexible dashboards that support timely review and disaggregation by student group.

• These results allow colleges to:
  • View response patterns quickly
  • Examine differences across student groups
  • Identify early barriers and opportunities for intervention

Early results are unweighted and designed to support immediate conversations and action.

In addition to early access to all data, two focus areas will be featured:

Colleges gain early insight into how students experience the transition into college, including:

• Whether students perceive the college as welcoming and feel connected to others
• Whether students met with an academic advisor before registering and when registration occurred
• Participation in orientation, how orientation was delivered, and reasons for not participating
• Whether needed courses were available at convenient times
• Early academic behaviors that may signal risk or momentum, including missed classes, missed assignments, and inability to obtain required course materials 

Colleges gain early insight into conditions that may affect students’ ability to remain enrolled and succeed, including:

• Whether students applied for and received financial assistance
• Whether and how students were given opportunities to express basic needs concerns
• Students’ awareness, use, and satisfaction with student support services, academic support services, and essential services
• Whether students have a specific person assigned to help when they need assistance
• Students’ experiences with academic planning, goal setting, and understanding program requirements
• External commitments—work, caregiving, and commuting—that influence enrollment decisions
• Issues students report may cause them to withdraw from one or more classes

As the term progresses, colleges gain a fuller understanding of patterns and differences across students. Final SENSE reporting includes weighted results, national context, expanded options for disaggregating and exploring relationships among survey items, and access to a student respondent data file.

With final SENSE reporting, colleges can:

• Examine how early experiences vary across student groups
• Identify institutional strengths and gaps in comparison with national results
• Refine early interventions, policies, and practices
• Support strategic planning, accreditation, and continuous improvement

Final reporting helps colleges connect early insight to sustained impact.