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Education & Academic

Graduating Student Experience & Career Readiness Survey

Captures how graduating students rate their academic experience, campus support, and readiness for what's next — from advising and coursework to job offers or grad school plans. Built for registrars, career centers, and academic affairs teams tracking outcomes across cohorts and programs. An AI follow-up interview digs into the specific moments that shaped a student's sense of readiness, going beyond a single rating.

Sample questions

A preview of what’s in the template. Every question is editable before you launch.

14 questions · ~7 min
Q01
Message

Congratulations on graduating! We'd love to hear how your time here went and how ready you feel for what's next. Your responses are completely confidential and anonymized. This takes about 6 minutes and helps us improve the experience for future students.

Q02
Multiple ChoiceRequired

Which best describes the degree you're completing?

  • Bachelor's degree
  • Master's degree
  • Doctoral degree
  • Professional degree (e.g., JD, MD, MBA)
Q03
Opinion ScaleRequired

Overall, how satisfied are you with your academic experience here?

Scale: 17
Min:Very dissatisfiedMax:Very satisfied
Q04
MatrixRequired

How would you rate each of the following aspects of your experience?

6 rows × 5 columns
  • Academic advising
  • Career services support
  • Relevance of coursework to your career goals
  • Faculty accessibility and mentorship
  • Financial aid or affordability support
  • +1 more
Columns: Poor · Fair · Good · Very good · Excellent
Q05
Multiple ChoiceRequired

What best describes your primary plan immediately after graduation?

  • Full-time job already secured
  • Still actively job searching
  • Continuing to graduate or professional school
  • Taking time off before deciding next steps
  • Starting my own business or venture
Q06
Rating ScaleRequired

How prepared do you feel for your next step, whether that's a job or further study?

Range: 15
Min:Not at all preparedMax:Extremely prepared
Q07
Best–Worst Trade-off (MaxDiff)Required

Which of the following shaped your overall experience the most, and which shaped it the least?

  • Quality of teaching and instruction
  • Academic advising
  • Career services and job search support
  • Internship or research opportunities
  • Campus community and sense of belonging
  • Financial aid and affordability
  • Extracurricular activities and clubs
  • Mental health and wellness support
Pick best & worst per setBest:Shaped my experience the mostWorst:Shaped my experience the least
Q08
AI Interview

Explore the specific experiences behind the respondent's preparedness rating: ask for a concrete moment, class, mentor, or internship that made them feel ready (or unready) for what's next. If they rated themselves highly prepared, push for one skill or gap they still worry about; if they rated themselves low, ask what single change earlier in their degree would have helped most. Also surface how their post-graduation plan (job, grad school, still searching) connects to that sense of readiness.

Q09
Opinion ScaleRequired

How likely are you to recommend this university to a prospective student in your field?

Scale: 010
Min:Not at all likelyMax:Extremely likely
Q10
Long Text

What's one thing the university could have done differently to better support you during your time here?

Q11
Multiple Choice

Which age range do you fall into?

  • 18-21
  • 22-24
  • 25-29
  • 30-39
  • 40 or older
  • Prefer not to say
Q12
Multiple Choice

Are you a first-generation college student (the first in your immediate family to earn a four-year degree)?

  • Yes, first-generation college student
  • No, not first-generation
  • Prefer not to say
Q13
Multiple Choice

How do you describe your gender?

  • Woman
  • Man
  • Non-binary
  • Prefer to self-describe
  • Prefer not to say
Q14
Message

That's everything — congratulations again, and thank you! Your answers feed directly into how we support advising, career services, and future students on their path to graduation.

What’s included

  • AI follow-ups

    Adaptive probes on open-ended answers that pull out detail a static form would miss.

  • Attention checks

    Built-in safeguards against rushed answers and low-quality respondents.

  • AI-drafted copy

    Wording, ordering, and branching written by the AI — tuned to your research goal.

  • Auto report

    Themes, quotes, and a plain-English summary write themselves once responses come in.

How it compares

We reviewed the closest templates from other survey tools. Here’s what they do well — and where this template goes further.

Why this template

  • Goes beyond a satisfaction score with an AI follow-up interview that digs into the specific moments — advising, coursework, a job offer, grad school decision — that shaped a graduate's readiness, not just a single rating
  • Combines structured questions (degree type, satisfaction opinion scale, matrix ratings across academic experience dimensions, MaxDiff on what shaped the experience most) with open-ended probing, so registrars and career centers get both comparable metrics and narrative context
  • Captures post-graduation destination (job vs. further study) alongside a readiness rating and a recommend-likelihood score, giving academic affairs teams outcome data tied to satisfaction drivers
  • Built-in demographic questions (age range, first-generation status, gender) let teams segment readiness and satisfaction findings by cohort without building a separate crosswalk

SurveyMonkey

Graduation Survey Template for University

A dedicated, fielding-ready graduation survey template aimed at the same audience as ours — graduating students reflecting on their academic experience. It's a static question set meant to be launched as-is or lightly customized, with SurveyMonkey's standard reporting layered on top. No mention of adaptive follow-up questioning to explore individual responses in depth.

What it does well

  • Purpose-built for the graduation/exit-survey use case, so questions are likely pre-aligned to this audience
  • Backed by SurveyMonkey's mature survey infrastructure (distribution, basic analytics, broad respondent familiarity)
  • Quick to deploy for teams wanting an off-the-shelf, no-setup template

Where it falls short

  • Fixed question flow with no adaptive AI follow-up to probe the 'why' behind a satisfaction or readiness rating
  • No voice AI interview or guided screen-share task option for richer qualitative capture
  • No published methodology for how responses are scored or synthesized into a report

SurveySparrow

University Student Satisfaction Survey Template

A general university student satisfaction template rather than one specifically built for the graduating-cohort, career-readiness moment — useful for ongoing satisfaction tracking but less tailored to registrar/career-center exit reporting. It appears to be a static, ready-to-send form using SurveySparrow's standard survey builder. No indication of adaptive questioning or career-outcome-specific fields like next-step plans or readiness.

What it does well

  • Conversational/chat-style survey format that can feel more approachable than a plain form
  • Broadly applicable to any student population, not just graduating seniors
  • Part of a template library, so easy to adapt for related student-experience surveys

Where it falls short

  • No graduation-specific or career-readiness content (e.g., post-grad plans, job/grad-school outcomes) built into the template
  • Static question set with no adaptive AI follow-up interview or voice AI option to explore individual answers
  • No transparent prompt methodology or automated per-response quality scoring

Frequently asked questions

What questions are in the “Graduating Student Experience & Career Readiness Survey” template?

The template includes 14 ready-to-use questions, starting with: “Congratulations on graduating! We'd love to hear how your time here went and how ready you feel for what's next. Your re…” · “Which best describes the degree you're completing?” · “Overall, how satisfied are you with your academic experience here?”. The full set is previewed above, and every question is editable.

How long does this survey take to complete?

Respondents typically finish the 14 questions in about 7 minutes.

Can I customize this template?

Yes — every question, answer option, and the ordering is editable before you launch. You can add or remove questions, or ask the AI editor to rework the survey around your research goal.

Is this template free to use?

Yes. Open it in the editor and start customizing right away — no account required to try it, and the free plan covers launching your survey.

Ready to launch?

Open this template in the editor. Every part is yours to change before the first respondent sees it.

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