CIRP Freshman Survey
The Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) is a national longitudinal study of the American higher education system. Established in 1966, the CIRP is the nation's largest and oldest empirical study of higher education, involving data on some 1,800 institutions and over 11 million students. It is regarded as the most comprehensive source of information on entering freshman college students. The annual report of the CIRP Freshman Survey provides normative data on each year's new entering freshman students, in total nationwide, and for many sub-groups by type of institution.
Carleton College has administered the CIRP Freshman Survey since 1966. The data here are presented graphically from the freshmen who entered in the fall of 1992 through those having enrolled in the current year.
Links to the graph sets are provided below, one for each survey topic. The first graph in each set provides the data for each question included in the topic for Carleton freshmen over time (i.e. what is the high, medium, and low for Carleton's new students, and how have these changed (or not) over time). Then, the subsequent graphs in each set examine each of the survey questions in the topic individually, providing Carleton's data over time, and comparing these to the norms for two groups of colleges:
a. "Peer Co-Ed Colleges": a set of about 8 to 10 other very highly selective, national, private, small liberal arts colleges
b. "Priv, Non-Sect, V Hi Sel": a set of 50 private, non-sectarian, very highly selective colleges. National norms for the set of 50 colleges fitting this description with the highest possible SAT averages.
Activities Engaged in High School
Concern About Paying for College