Around this time of year, schools around the country send out something called an admitted student questionnaire. Some schools pay The College Board to administer the survey for them, others (like UVa) create something themselves. Regardless of how it arrives, I think I speak for my colleagues when I saw we hope you take a few minutes to answer our questions. This is your chance to tell us about how you decided to go to the school in which you enrolled. It's also your chance to tell schools if they could have done something a little better.
Most ASQs have questions about where you decided to go instead of the school behind the survey. This is to help schools know what their "peer" institutions are. We know where our admitted students are often accepted, but it helps to see if there are new names to consider.
Some students are concerned that the colleges may "track" what they say in these surveys. I'm not quite sure why there's any concern, especially if you've already turned the school down, but let me assure you that we don't care about matching your answers up with your name. We are, however, interested in matching your answers up to characteristics about you. For example, we look at how students who applied to a certain school responded, or to how the answers of out of state students compared to Virginians. The data collected will help us focus on the programs and activities that students found most useful and also help us plan our travel season in the fall.
