The Framework › Personal

Communication & Information

7.6 / 10 ▲ rising

Ranked #6 of 11 in Personal · domain mean 7.6

Distribution of responses

11%

27%

61%

Struggling (0-4) Neutral (>4-<8) Thriving (8-10)

How institutions vary

Measured across 65 institutions with enough responses on this topic.

See the institutional spread

How far apart the weakest and strongest institutions sit on Communication & Information, and how much of a student's experience is decided by where they study.

What we ask

Topic-level question

“Communication from my institution is clear and helpful.”

See all 5 questions and their adaptive follow-ups in the Question Library →

What students say, and why

Where it scores lowest

Slow or absent responses; students have to chase for an answer.

"They don’t reply; you have to call repeatedly, and then you often have to keep looking yourself."

Where it scores highest

Quick, attentive responses; things get sorted fast.

"If something’s missing, it gets sorted as fast as possible."

One comment from each end. Representative, de-identified, translated where needed.

Read all 4 comments

The full set of de-identified student comments from the lowest- and highest-scoring responses on this topic.

Related insights

Single-stat insight

Students find feedback useful. They're less sure it reaches them in time

Across the dataset, students rate feedback constructive at 7.8 out of 10 but score being kept informed in time at just 6.2, a 1.6-point gap between feedback quality and timeliness.

Single-stat insight

The first thing students judge is whether anyone told them what's happening

Onboarding communication scores 8.1 out of 10, but it is the first impression a student ever forms, and the minority who hit silence form it at the most fragile moment.

How we measure it

This is the topic-level average across its subtopics, on a 0-10 scale (higher is better), so an individual subtopic can score higher or lower than the topic shown here. Figures are scored responses from the last 12 months, mapped to the 2026 framework via the canonical question mapping. Movement compares the most recent six months with the prior six. Distribution bands: 0-4, >4-<8, 8-10. Cross-institution aggregate; no single institution identified; minimum group size applied.

Read the State of the Student Experience 2026

Our annual report: what more than three million student datapoints reveal about wellbeing, teaching and belonging, and what actually moves recommendation and retention. Free, for a work email.

Get the report Book a demo