Freshman Survey

Starting in Fall of 2022, CSUSM began administering the Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE), re-branded as the Kickstart Survey, to all incoming First-Year students during the first two weeks of the semester. In Fall of 2023, the survey administration was expanded to include Transfer students as well. The BCSSE survey instrument has common content for students regarding their academic expectations and perceptions for the coming year.

To view a summary of the findings for each year, click on the name of the report.

Fall 2023

From Fall of 2015-2021, during the summer orientation sessions for new students at CSUSM, all entering freshmen were given the opportunity to complete the comprehensive Freshman Survey distributed annually by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA. The survey provides a detailed profile of the freshman class including demographic characteristics, high school activities, goals and attitudes, and reasons for attending college.

The following reports examine students' responses to a range of questions by:

comparing the responses of CSUSM students to those from students at similar public universities.
comparing the responses of selected subgroups of CSUSM students (e.g. first generation students) to those of all CSUSM respondents.
presenting responses from CSUSM students longitudinally to show trends over time.