No, but we highly recommend you take the opportunity to customize so that your reports are aligned with your assessment needs. If you don’t customize a given comparison group you will receive a default set of institutions based on your institution’s characteristics.

View our guide to selecting comparison groups 

The default comparison groups are:

• Group 1—All other prior- and current-year institutions in your geographic region and sector (private/public),
• Group 2—All other prior- and current-year institutions with the same Basic Carnegie Classification, and
• Group 3—All other prior- and current-year U.S. institutions (Canadian institutions get all prior- and current-year U.S. and all other prior- and current-year Canadian institutions).
• If you participated in a consortium or Topical Module, your default comparison group for that report consists of all other prior- and current-year institutions that administered the consortium or module questions.

You may return to the form and edit information as often as you like until the form closes.

Institutions have different reasons for selecting comparison groups such as to match institutional characteristics (e.g., size, setting, or selectivity), special missions (e.g., land grant, religious, or technical), geographic region (e.g., Midwest), or locale (e.g., urban). You may also consider “institutional peers” (common peer comparison groups used by your institution) or “aspirational peers” (institutions considered high performers in some dimensions). When in doubt, the default comparison groups provide fairly distinct comparisons that are appropriate for most institutions.

You may also ask for assistance from NSSE. The resource Selecting Comparison Groups is available to guide your selections.

Yes. Comparison groups may include both current- and prior-year participants. Keep in mind that for some question sets (e.g., new or updated modules, new consortium items) only current-year schools may be available.

Search NSSE Participating Institutions

Institutions that do not have certain default criteria must select a comparison group. For example, if your institution does not have a Carnegie Classification (or if this group has fewer than five NSSE-participating institutions) that default group is not available.

The 2021 Carnegie Classifications will be used in this year’s form. We plan to adopt the 2025 classification for the 2026 NSSE reports.

The form will display your currently selected comparison institutions. There is also an option to generate an email that lists your selections. Finally, you will receive a confirmation email of your selections after the Report Form closes. If this information is incorrect, please contact NSSE.