Download these instructions as a PDF: Fiske 2026 Instructions.
Instructions for Completing the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2026 Institutional Questionnaire, Write-Up Comments, and Student Questionnaires
Instructions for the Institutional Questionnaire:
- Please use the data from your school’s 2023–2024 Common Data Set. (Further explanation of the Fiske Guide to Colleges timeline is available here.)
- Please keep in mind that only questions in “Common Data Set” category of the questionnaire pull data from your CDS, and we ask that you still complete the remaining portions of the questionnaire.
- For more detailed instructions, see “Additional instructions for the institutional questionnaire” below.
- Your institutional questionnaire is due no later than May 24, 2024.
Instructions for the write-up feedback:
- We also ask that you offer comments on your school’s most recent write-up. Such feedback is critical for helping us ensure that we have the most up-to-date and accurate information for your school.
- Write-ups from the 2025 edition are available to review now. When you are logged in, you can access the write-up by clicking the “Write-Up” button in the User Menu on the left-hand side of the homepage. (For detailed write-up instructions, reference: Fiske Write-Up Instructions PDF.)
- Your write-up comments are due no later than May 24, 2024.
Instructions for the student questionnaire:
- Please identify a cross-section of up to 5 undergraduate students whom you believe will paint an accurate picture of your institution.
- The student access code is valid for all students participating in the student questionnaire: you will not need to acquire additional codes. The student access code can also be found on the homepage when you’re logged into your school’s website. Your students will need this code in order to submit their surveys.
- Students should be informed that we pull direct quotes from the surveys to use in the Fiske Guide.
- The completed student questionnaires are due by May 24, 2024.
Additional instructions for the institutional questionnaire:
Step 1: Log in with the assigned account credentials
- Accounts are pre-assigned, and usernames and passwords were emailed to the school admin on file. If you need the log-in information, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
- All accounts have been newly created this year.
- If there are other members of your staff, either within your department or in another department, who will be responsible for completing portions of the questionnaire, please feel free to share your username and password with them. You do not need secondary or additional usernames or passwords for additional staff members.
- Go to http://fiske.sourcebookscollege.com and click on Login.
Step 2: Complete the Institutional Questionnaire
- Click on the Questionnaire link in the left User Menu sidebar. This will take you to the first page of the Institutional Questionnaire.
- The first screen of the questionnaire requests respondent information. Fill in your name and personal contact information. Note that your email address is a required field—when you submit your completed questionnaire, a copy of your answers will automatically be emailed to you, for your records. Once this screen is complete, click the Start/Continue Questionnaire button.
- The institutional questionnaire is provided on just one screen. Note the buttons at the top: the ←Back button will take you back to the respondent information screen, and the Ready to Submit→ button will take you to the final submission screen, once you’re completely finished and ready to submit your questionnaire. Remember to save frequently—Save buttons are located at the top of the screen and throughout the questionnaire. Clicking Save ensures that you can log out of the Fiske website and return to work on the questionnaire later without losing any of your data. If at any time you’d like to email your answers to yourself for review, click the Save and Email button at the top of the screen.
- Note: Do not use your browser’s Back and Forward navigation buttons while completing the questionnaire. If you do, any data you entered since the last time you saved will be lost.
- For help calculating enrollment figures for questions 7 and 8, reference: Enrollment Instructions PDF.
- You will find several questions related to financial aid. Most can be answered using information from your 2022–2023 Common Data Set, but we are also asking for some key data points—in particular, the percentage of students eligible for Pell Grants—that are not on the CDS. Please answer these questions with the most current data you have available.
- Questionnaire submission screen: Click the Ready to Submit→ button at the top of the screen to access the final submission screen. The ←Back button on this screen will allow you to return to the questionnaire if you need to. Once you are certain that your questionnaire is complete, click Submit. Clicking Submit will complete the process, and a confirmation email with your submission details and questionnaire responses will automatically be sent to the email address provided on the respondent information screen. Note that once you have clicked Submit, you will not be able to access your questionnaire again.
- All institutional questionnaires must be submitted by May 24, 2024.
- Please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you have concerns about meeting the May 24 deadline.
- While we make every reasonable effort to follow up on seeming irregularities, you are ultimately responsible for the accurate recording and submission of your school’s data.
Tips for Entering Your Data
- Many of the fields in the institutional questionnaire ask similar questions as the Common Data Set; codes in parentheses indicate the line in the CDS where the data can be found.
- Phone numbers should be entered in the following style:
- For U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities: (###) ###-####
- For UK colleges and universities: (+44) (0) #### ######
- Websites should be entered without “http://” unless the URL begins with a different prefix than “www.”
- Numbers exceeding 999 should be entered without commas (1537 instead of 1,537). The use of commas in numeric fields will cause data-saving errors.
- Fields requiring financial or dollar amount information should be entered without a decimal point or comma (1537 instead of 1,537.00).
- Do not include the percent symbol (%) or dollar symbol ($) in fields requesting percentages or dollar amounts. Only the numerals are required.
- All numbers should be rounded to the nearest whole number.
Thank you for participating in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2025 update process!