National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)

Whether you arrived at this web site from the NSSE-USA Today site, Hampden-Sydney Admissions page, or found it by some other means, we are enthusiastic about sharing our results from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE).   The NSSE collects information annually from first-year and senior students, at 1,200 baccalaureate degree-granting colleges and universities in the US and Canada, about the quality of their undergraduate experience.

Our men value their H-SC education

We are proud to show you that Hampden-Sydney men see their education as excellent.  Our NSSE Benchmarks as well as H-SC identified benchmarks support our students' views.

Another important measure of the success of a college is the “value added” to its students from their educational experience. Our NSSE data show Hampden-Sydney College adds considerable value to the experience of its students. Comparing the NSSE scores of freshmen in 2003 with the same cohort as seniors in 2007, we find increases in the scores on 64 of 79 individual NSSE survey items (81%), of which 35 of the 64 increased scores (or 55%) are statistically significant. Clearly, our students demonstrate and recognize the contribution that the College makes to their educational and personal development.

You can see the value added, too, by looking at the benchmark comparisons above. On every one of the benchmark measures, our seniors score higher than our freshmen. Moreover, on every one of the benchmark comparisons our students show greater relative increases between the freshman and senior years than do the students from the comparison groups.

If you are interested, you can examine the entire NSSE data reports at H-SC's Institutional Research Site.  We think you will see why we are so proud of our results.