What is the cost?

The costs below are for each survey selected. The cost for each Check-In survey for currently registered BCSSE 2025 schools ranges from $250 to $1470. The costs for schools not currently registered for BCSSE 2025 ranges from $450 to $1674.

Registration for schools wishing to participate only in Check-In surveys will open later this spring. Schools registering for BCSSE 2025 can add on these Check-In options at the time of BCSSE registration.

Administration

It is administered to students locally by each campus. Options for administration include, posting links to student portals, advising/faculty encouragement to complete, using email, and providing opportunities in class for student to complete.

Fall Check-In procedures and options are the same as for BCSSE. See Administering BCSSE for more details.

Why Participate

Institutions can use data from these surveys to:.

1. Provide support or assistance directly to students. For example, data/reports can be provided to academic advisors for students expressing concern about their academic progress. Another example is to reach out to students who express concerns regarding mental health. All of the data and reports are available in real-time, 24/7. This allows staff to reach out to students when assistance is most needed.
2. Provide summative reports regarding the campus mood and climate. For example, a report for student affairs can include what students are excited about in September and looking forward to. Student affairs can respond in real-time with programming and services that build on this enthusiasm. Another example is a report regarding students’ feeling safe on campus, particularly if a campus event just occurred that may cause a sense of fear or uncertainty.
3. Provide comparative summative results by other institution types. This would allow an institution to gauge whether their student experiences are part of a larger trend or if something unique that is happening on their campus.
4. Connect student responses on the check-in surveys with their prior BCSSE responses and future NSSE responses (if available). Specialized reports will provide detailed information to the campus regarding patterns and relationships with incoming characteristics and their subsequent experiences later in the fall. Also, connecting with NSSE provides additional context to help understand student engagement and success later in the spring.

Complete, raw data files will be provided to all campuses. When possible, the data files will include linked BCSSE and NSSE data.

How it works

Institutions can choose to use student-specific links, institution-specific links, or a combination of both.

Institution-specific links will provide summary results and data using dashboards that are available 24/7. Summary results can answer questions such as, "What are the primary concerns with our new students this fall?" and "Where are do we to allocate resources based on student concerns?" Student responses using the institution-specific only links will be anonymous. Student ID and name are not collected.

Student-specific links will provide summary results and data using dashboards that are available 24/7. The dashboards provides immediate access to data needed for staff (e.g., advisors) to reach out to students who may need some assistance. The data also also connect to the responses students provided on BCSSE earlier in the summer/fall (if available). Institutions using student-specific links will also get summary reports. Institutions have the option of adding up to 3 grouping variables that will be appended to each student response. You can use these grouping variables to add major, advisor, first generation status, and other student-specific information to each student response. Student responses using the student-specific links are not anonymous.