University of Washington Parent Phone Survey 2002
Final Report

How the Survey was Conducted:
 
The fifteenth annual Parent Phone Survey was commissioned by the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs, and conducted by Residential Hall Resident Advisers between December 3 and December 5, 2002.  The survey call list included 1,187 randomly selected parents of current freshmen, approximately 82 percent residing in the state of Washington and 18 percent residing out-of- state. A total of 857 parents were contacted and asked the following questions:

1. Did you attend Freshman Convocation?

a) If YES: What was your overall impression?
b) If NO: Would you share with me your main reason for not attending?
c) In-State residents only: Were you aware that Convocation was broadcast periodically on UWTV?

2. Overall, how is school going for your daughter/son?
3. Does your daughter/son live in a Residence Hall, the Greek System or off campus?
4. How is that going for your daughter/son?

Though parents were not prompted with specific examples, their responses and comments were divided into general categories (such as “Class Difficulty” or “Campus Safety”) and characterized as negative, positive or neutral. In addition, specific comments were recorded and are included at the end of this report.

 
The Survey Findings:
 
Question #1: Did you attend Freshman Convocation?

Figure 1.1

The percentage of parents who attended Freshman Convocation stayed about the same as last year's rate (23% this year, 25% last year). 27% (also last year’s %) of the out-of-state parents attended the event.
 
Figure 1.3 (below) shows the reasons given for not attending convocation.

Reasons for Not Attending Convocation

Figure 1.3

156 (81%) of those who attended Freshman Convocation had positive things to say about the event (down from 84% last year), while only 7 (4%) had a negative impression overall.

 
Only 6% of parents surveyed were aware that the convocation had been broadcast live on UWTV. This is down from 12.9% last year. (Note: Only Washington residents were asked about their knowledge of the UWTV broadcast.) Those who attended the event were more than three times as likely to know about the broadcast than those who did not attend (15% versus 5%).

Question #2: Overall, how is school going for your daughter/son?

When asked how school was going for their son or daughter, 679 (81%) of those surveyed felt that, overall, the experience was positive. This is down from last year’s 88%. As in years past, those who had attended convocation were somewhat more likely to express positive feelings about their child's college experience overall (84% versus 81%).

Figure 2.1

Parents of out-of-state students had about the same response rate to this question (68%) as in-state parents (69%).  However, the comments of out-of-state parents were somewhat more positive than parents of in-state students (89% positive and 2% negative for out-of-state parents versus 84% positive and 4% negative for in-state parents).
 
Figure 2.2 shows a breakdown (by number) of the specific types of comments that were made. Figure 2.3 depicts those numbers graphically, and by percentage. Most of the comments related to Class Difficulty, Registration, Class Size and Instructors.  The greatest number of negative comments was in the category Class Registration, while the greatest number of positive comments was in the category Class Difficulty.

Comments on the Question "Overall, how is school going for your daughter/son?"

Question #3: Does your daughter/son live in a Residence Hall, the Greek System or off campus?

517 (63%) of those surveyed indicated their daughter/son lives in a Residence Hall, compared to 153 (18%) in the Greek System, and 160 (19%) off campus. It is worth noting that of the 152 out-of-state respondents, 85% had a child in the Residence Halls, while only 11% had a child in the Greek system, and only 5% indicated that their child lived off campus. Figure 3.1 graphically depicts the overall responses.

Figure 3.1

Figure 4.1 through 4.4 (below) show the numbers and types of comments respondents had when asked about their student's on campus or Greek System living situation. Parents continue to be pleased with the overall accommodations and social activities offered in the Residence Halls as well as in the Greek System.
 
Figure 4.1 and 4.2 depict comment counts by category with the most commonly mentioned topics first. Figure 4.3 and 4.4 are based on the same numbers, but depict the percentage of positive versus negative remarks.

Comments About the Residence Halls (by number)

Figure 4.1

Comments About the Greek System (by number)

Figure 4.2

Conclusion:
 
Included with this report is a list of all the specific comments that were recorded by the student callers. Overall, parents reported that their son or daughter was having a positive experience at the University of Washington. When asked about Freshman Convocation, most of those who had attended had a positive impression of the experience.

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