Here are some of the best questions for a community college student survey about the registration and enrollment process, plus smart tips for crafting them. If you want to build your own survey, you can generate one with Specific in seconds.
The best open-ended questions for deeper insights
Open-ended questions let students share candid feedback and details you’d never find in a checkbox. Use these when you want the full story, not just a simple yes/no or a rating. This style helps surface unexpected issues, stories, and suggestions—crucial because part-time students still make up nearly 68% of the community college population, and their paths can be uniquely complex. [1]
What challenges did you face during the registration and enrollment process?
Can you describe a specific moment when something worked particularly well (or poorly) during enrollment?
What information did you wish you had before starting your registration?
How did you feel about the support offered by staff during registration?
Were there any parts of the enrollment process that were confusing or unclear?
What resources (online or in-person) helped you most when enrolling?
In what ways could we simplify the registration process for new students?
Tell us about any delays or problems you experienced and how they impacted your plans.
What advice would you give to students registering for the first time?
Is there anything you would change about how registration information is communicated?
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for quick quantification
Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect when you need quantitative data or want to start a conversation that will continue with follow-ups. Many students appreciate being able to pick from a list before elaborating—a huge plus given that over half of dual-enrollment students are still in high school, with rapidly growing participation. [1]
Question: How easy was it to find the information you needed about registration?
Very easy
Somewhat easy
Somewhat difficult
Very difficult
Question: Which method did you primarily use to complete your registration?
College website
In-person with staff
Mobile app
Other
Question: How satisfied are you with your overall enrollment experience?
Very satisfied
Satisfied
Dissatisfied
Very dissatisfied
When to follow up with "why?" Don’t stop at the surface. If a student selects "Dissatisfied," a follow-up like "Why did you feel dissatisfied with the enrollment process?" uncovers actionable reasons you can fix. This is where conversational AI really shines—asking the right follow-up in real time based on earlier answers.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always include an "Other" option if the set of answers could be incomplete or the process is evolving. Following up with "Can you specify what you meant by 'Other'?" often reveals gaps you didn’t know existed.
NPS-type question: capturing recommendation likelihood
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) question sheds light on overall satisfaction and word-of-mouth potential—a key metric not just for businesses but for colleges, too. Use an NPS question like: "On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our registration and enrollment process to another student?" The beauty here: it instantly segments your audience and triggers tailored follow-ups for advocates and detractors alike. You can build an NPS survey in one click with the Specific survey builder.
The power of follow-up questions
If you want useful, actionable data instead of vague responses, you need to ask great follow-up questions. Our platform’s AI follow-up feature does this automatically—digging deeper, like an expert interviewer, as the conversation unfolds. Over 60% of educators are already using AI in their classrooms to save time and maximize value. [2] AI-powered follow-ups mean you don't have to chase clarifications over email—students can elaborate in the moment, so the feedback stays rich and contextual.
Student: “I had issues with the online portal.”
AI follow-up: “Can you describe specifically what issues you experienced with the portal?”
How many followups to ask? For most use cases, two or three follow-up questions strike a balance—enough to clarify but not overwhelm. You can even enable settings to skip further probing once you’ve collected what you need. With Specific, there’s an option for this fine-grained control.
This makes it a conversational survey—the feedback feels like a natural, interactive chat, not an interrogation or a stale web form.
AI survey analysis is easy: Even if you gather tons of open-ended feedback, AI makes it simple to analyze and summarize responses. Check out our guide on how to analyze survey responses with AI for more details.
These automated follow-up questions are a newer approach—trying them for yourself with our survey generator is the best way to experience their value firsthand.
Prompting AI for better survey questions
If you want to brainstorm survey questions with ChatGPT, start broad and then get specific. Try this in your first message:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for community college student survey about registration and enrollment process.
AI gets even better with more context. The more you share about your school, your goals, or your unique student mix, the richer the questions become. For example:
I'm designing a survey for students at an urban community college with many part-time and dual-enrollment students. Our goal is to identify pain points in the registration process to improve support and increase full-time enrollment.
Once you have a solid list, organize further:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Based on these categories, pick the ones you want to explore deeper—then prompt again:
Generate 10 questions for categories “support experience” and “online portal accessibility.”
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey feels like a chat, not a test. With every student reply, the AI can clarify, probe, or encourage details—mining for richer, more actionable insight. This is a big step up from the traditional, checkbox-laden web forms we’re all used to.
Let’s look at how manual and AI-generated surveys compare:
Manual Survey | AI-Generated Survey |
|---|---|
Each question is hand-written, built in a rigid form. | AI instantly creates survey based on your prompt and refines questions in real time. |
No real-time follow-up—collects static data only. | Conversationally probes for details, context, and stories, just like a live interview. |
Time-consuming and can miss important context or nuance. | Rapid to build, covers all angles, and adapts to respondent’s feedback dynamically. |
Why use AI for community college student surveys? Quite simply, AI lets you build better surveys, faster, while engaging harder-to-reach respondents (like part-time or dual-enrolled students). Given that 86% of students already use AI tools in their own studies—with over half using them weekly—it makes sense to meet them in a format and interface that feels familiar. [3]
If you’re new to conversational AI surveys, take a look at our guide on how to create a survey fast using AI. Specific’s survey tool leads the way when it comes to smooth, mobile-friendly experiences for both survey creators and respondents.
See this registration and enrollment process survey example now
Get real, actionable feedback from students. See how easy it is to build a conversational survey that uncovers barriers and wins—using smart, dynamic questions to drive enrollment innovation.