Here are some of the best questions for a college graduate student survey about mentorship quality, plus tips on crafting great ones. You can quickly build a tailored survey in seconds with Specific—no guesswork or templates needed.
The best open-ended questions for mentorship quality surveys
Open-ended questions let college graduate students express their experiences and insights in detail. They’re the go-to tool when you want honest, rich, and nuanced feedback instead of simple yes/no or rating answers. These are especially valuable when exploring mentorship quality, since the mentee’s story often reveals more than a score.
Effective mentorship is proven to boost academic performance and deepen personal satisfaction among graduate students. Honest, qualitative insights can uncover patterns and themes behind these successes, as well as areas needing improvement. [1]
What aspects of your mentorship experience had the most significant impact on your academic journey?
Can you describe a specific instance where your mentor helped you overcome a challenge?
In what ways did your mentor support your professional growth?
How did your mentor encourage you to pursue your goals or explore new opportunities?
Is there anything you wish your mentor had done differently?
How has your mentor influenced your approach to problem-solving in your field?
What qualities or habits made your mentor particularly effective (or ineffective)?
Describe how feedback from your mentor impacted your project or research work.
How did your mentor help you build confidence or resilience as a graduate student?
What changes would you suggest to improve mentorship programs for future students?
Even a handful of these questions can reveal actionable insights that quantitative data might miss entirely.
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for mentorship surveys
Single-select multiple-choice questions are essential when you need to quickly quantify opinions or spot trends at scale. They work especially well if you want to break the ice or guide students toward more in-depth open-ended responses—sometimes, checking a box feels easier than composing a paragraph.
Question: How satisfied are you with the overall quality of mentorship you received?
Very satisfied
Satisfied
Neutral
Dissatisfied
Very dissatisfied
Question: How frequently did you communicate with your mentor?
Weekly or more
Biweekly
Monthly
Less than monthly
Question: Which aspect of mentorship was most valuable to you?
Academic advice
Career support
Personal encouragement
Networking
Other
When to follow up with "why?" Sometimes, a multiple-choice response only scratches the surface. For instance, if a student selects “Dissatisfied,” a follow-up like “Can you tell us why you felt dissatisfied?” encourages them to share details and context. This is the key to actionable survey data—getting to the “why.”
When and why to add the "Other" choice? “Other” gives respondents permission to surface viewpoints or experiences the question author didn’t consider. This option, plus a follow-up prompt, can uncover surprising insights and edge cases, strengthening your survey's completeness and inclusiveness.
Should you use an NPS-style question to rate mentorship?
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) question—“How likely are you to recommend this mentorship program to a friend or peer?” on a 0–10 scale—has become a standard for measuring loyalty and perceived quality in all sorts of environments, including education. For mentorship quality, it lets you distill complex feelings into a simple metric, while smart follow-ups can reveal the reasons behind those scores. It's a helpful pulse-check that can complement your qualitative and structured data.
If this approach sounds right for your College Graduate Student audience, you can generate an NPS mentorship survey in seconds with Specific.
The power of follow-up questions
What really sets apart advanced conversational surveys—like those built in Specific—is the ability to ask dynamic, context-sensitive follow-up questions after each response. Automated follow-up questions dig deeper, clarify ambiguous phrases, and enable organic conversation (just like a skilled interviewer).
Real-time follow-ups save time you’d otherwise spend sifting through vague answers or chasing respondents via email. More importantly, they capture critical context, which is essential when a student’s first response is too brief or unclear. For example:
Graduate student: “My mentor was just okay.”
AI follow-up: “Can you share specific examples of what made your mentorship experience just okay?”
This way, you go from a flat, almost useless statement to a goldmine of actionable feedback.
How many follow-ups to ask? We find that 2–3 targeted follow-ups are usually enough for most graduate students, while still keeping the conversation engaging and on-topic. Specific lets you set these rules—so if you feel you've got what you need after one strong follow-up, conversation can skip ahead automatically.
This makes it a conversational survey—less like a form, more like a meaningful back-and-forth. It increases engagement and delivers deeper, context-rich insight.
AI survey response analysis, AI analysis of open-ended questions—even for dozens of nuanced responses, AI makes it effortless to synthesize all your data. If you want to see how easy it is, try analyzing open responses with AI after your next survey.
Automated follow-ups are a new concept for most people. If you haven’t tried it yet, generate a survey for your students and see how much better the feedback can be, with almost no extra effort.
How to prompt AI for great survey questions
The right prompt unlocks better AI survey questions. Start with something simple like:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for College Graduate Student survey about Mentorship Quality.
But if you give your AI assistant extra context about who you are and what you want to learn, the results get way better:
You are a program coordinator designing a survey for recent college graduates to understand the effectiveness of their mentorship experiences. Please suggest 10 in-depth, open-ended questions that explore both positive outcomes and areas for improvement.
With your list of questions in hand, try further prompts:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
After reviewing the themes and categories, dig deeper into the ones you care about with focused prompts:
Generate 10 questions for categories Academic Growth and Professional Development.
By combining these strategies, you can iterate from a generic survey to a set of questions perfectly calibrated for your goals.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey feels like a dialogue, not a static form. The AI engages with respondents in a chat-like flow, asking questions, then smart follow-ups depending on previous answers. This style draws out genuine, complete stories—crucial for understanding mentorship quality among college graduates. If you compare with traditional surveys, the differences are clear:
Manual Survey Creation | AI-Generated Conversational Survey |
|---|---|
Slow and repetitive to build | Rapid creation based on your prompt |
Static, pre-set logic only | Dynamic follow-up based on answers |
Harder to engage respondents | Interactive, engaging, and natural-feeling |
Manual analysis of qualitative data | Built-in AI analysis and chat about results |
Why use AI for college graduate student surveys? There’s no faster, more effective way to go from idea to actionable, in-depth feedback. With Specific, you can quickly generate a complete AI survey example tailored to graduate students and mentorship—even if you’re not a survey expert. Editing your survey is as easy as chatting with the AI (see AI survey editor).
Whether you want to create a new survey from scratch or check out a preset for college mentorship quality, you’re covered. Get tips and a step-by-step approach from our guide on survey creation.
Specific delivers the best-in-class conversational survey experience, making it simple and engaging for both survey creators and graduate student respondents—and ensuring you get more complete feedback every time.
See this mentorship quality survey example now
Ready for richer feedback? See how conversational surveys powered by AI can transform your understanding of mentorship quality among graduate students. Experience deeper insights and an engaging feedback process—create your own survey now.