Frequently Asked Questions

Which degree levels do the standards and protocols address?

The standards and protocols address all degree levels: associate, bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral.

How do the standards define the graduating class?

The graduating class is made up of students who graduated from July 1 through June 30; the Class of 2025, for example, is comprised of students who graduated from July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025. This is consistent with the definition used by the U.S. Department of Education in gathering education statistics for its IPEDS database.

This timeframe is likely to be a challenge for some institutions that define graduating class differently. If this is the case with your school, NACE recommends that you seek support from institutional research and other leadership to use the July 1 – June 30 timeframe; explain the initiative and its national scope.

When should we collect, analyze, and submit our data for the Class of 2025?

The primary data-collection period is July 1 through December 31.

However, as a best practice, NACE recommends that you begin surveying Class of 2025 students before they leave campus, and continue to survey them through December 31, 2025. Use January and early February to put the data together and analyze the data.

You can report your data to NACE anytime from January 1, 2026, through April 30, 2026. NACE will aggregate the data and provide final results in fall 2026.

(Note: Participation in the NACE first-destination initiative does not preclude individual institutions from continuing to collect and report additional data at other intervals for their own purposes or the purposes of their state systems.)

If we currently conduct a first-destination survey at graduation and a nine-month follow-up survey, would this protocol combine the two into one continuous survey?

The best practice methodology is to begin to communicate with students before they graduate and leave your campus. Instead of thinking about one-time efforts, think about continuing to identify those people whose status is unknown, who are still seeking, or from those you have not heard. Reach out to  them continuously over that period—monthly, for example—to keep them engaged and so that the data collection is ongoing rather than episodic. We recommend using various methods of contacting graduates(phone calls, emails, texts, forms, surveys) to ensure an overall stronger knowledge rate.

We are a two-year college where most of our students graduate and transfer to four-year colleges. Will this data be collected?

Yes, continuing education is one of the outcomes for both two-year and four-year schools.

You use the term “positive career outcome”—which first-destination categories does this include?

Positive career outcomes includes all of the employment categories (employment, entrepreneurs, temporary/contract employment, freelancing, fellowship/internship) plus service, military, and continuing education.

Please explain the terms “knowledge rate” and “career outcome rate.”

NACE coined the term “knowledge rate” to be used in lieu of “survey response rate” to reflect the approach of going beyond simply relying on a survey for obtaining outcomes information. This is much more than “just a survey”—it is a critical set of data highlighting university outcomes.

It’s important to think about not how many graduates responded to your outreach, but to identify the percentage of graduates for whom you have knowledge about their first-destination career outcomes. This is an acceptable research methodology as long as the data are reliable and verifiable. In addition to getting data directly from the graduate, NACE encourages institutions to look at other legitimate sources of finding critical outcome information, such as faculty, employers, and social media. When using these sources, we recommend verifying the outcome with the graduate.

Instead of using “placement rate”—a misnomer that suggests graduates are “placed” into positions or further education, NACE’s first destination standards use “career outcome rate,” which is the percentage of graduates who are engaged in a career outcome. The standards define career outcomes and take a structured approach that incorporates certain categories into career outcomes. For instance, both full- and part-time work are included as a career outcome, and the standards distinguish voluntary service programs, military service, and continuing education from employment, but include the voluntary service programs, military service, and continuing education as part of the career outcome rate so they reflect positively on the individual graduate and on the institution.

Why are you recommending reporting both the career outcomes rate and the knowledge rate together?

The interpretation of the career outcomes rate is only meaningful if we know the percent of students that a school has knowledge about their outcomes. Therefore, we recommend that when you report the career outcomes rate, you couple that with the knowledge rate. In addition, we would recommend that you share how you collected the data on students, e.g., through forms, phone calls, emails, surveys, social media,  and so forth, so that there is full transparency in the data collection process.

How can we best use LinkedIn and other second-hand sources of data that do not come directly from the student?

We recommend using LinkedIn, faculty, parents, or other secondary data sources as a way to gather some information that can then open up a conversation with the student to confirm that information. For example, if you find on LinkedIn that a student is working at Company ABC, you can then reach out to that student to confirm. Best practice is to verify the data with the student instead of relying solely on second-hand sources.

How was the goal of 65% knowledge rate determined?

NACE chose a knowledge rate that would be manageable and achievable for institutions that have conducted previous first-destination surveys as well as those that have not conducted such a survey. Remember that you are not looking for a response rate of 65%; rather, you are looking to hit that mark in your knowledge rate. Knowledge rate allows for multiple sources of data, not just survey responses.

The template does not include a tab for professional program graduates. How should they be represented in the data we report?

They go under either master’s or doctoral tabs depending on the level of the professional program.

Is there a minimum size class for reporting purposes? 

No there is not as all data are aggregated first at the school level and then again when NACE reports data out.

Common Issues

We have a graduate who reported an outcome in August but came back in November and reported a different outcome. What should we report?

When reporting an individual graduate’s outcome, NACE recommends that the latest known outcome in the collection period be reported. For example, if in the initial survey the graduate reports “still seeking employment” as the primary status and it becomes known later in the collection period that the graduate is employed full time, the graduate should be listed as employed in your final report to NACE. Conversely, if the graduate’s initial status is “employed full-time” but subsequent information captured during the collection period indicates that the graduate is no longer employed but is now seeking employment, then “still seeking employment” should be reported.

If a graduate is a fully remote worker, how should we indicate their geographic location?

Many graduates working remotely will list their corporate headquarters as their address; that works in this situation. If there isn’t that option, we recommend that you use the state that the student pays income tax as the location. 

If a student has a medical, cultural, or other non-employment-based reason why they are not employed after graduation, how should we indicate that?

There are times when a student cannot seek a career outcome. These include medical issues (such as undergoing medical treatments), family issues (primary caregiving, maternity/paternity leave), incarceration, or cultural reasons. In these cases, the student should be listed a “not seeking”; this will not impact the career outcomes rate.

How do we handle outliers and decisions about inclusion or exclusion of what look like positions unrelated to the graduate’s major?

The standard is to collect salaries of those graduates employed in full-time positions, and from that collection to collect the average and the median. If you have a situation with a very low or very high salary, we encourage you to double check with the graduate to ensure the salary is not a typo, but instead the true reflection of the wage. Anything reported over $1 million would not be calculated into the aggregate results.

In terms of employment that does not appear to relate to the graduate’s major, the standards and protocols reject the notion of relating job outcomes to academic study as that can be subject to interpretation, and we want to honor the choices of our graduates. 

What do we do about students with serial majors?

If serial majors refers to students who graduate with more than one major, then we suggest a two-step procedure. First, in completing the overall outcomes profile by degree-level count the student only once. Second, in completing the outcomes profile by individual major count the student under each relevant major. For example, a student graduates with both English and history majors, the student’s destination outcome should be counted for both the English major profile and for the history major profile. Check on the program: Is it one enrollment for a program of study? Do they receive one degree or two? If they are a double major but enrolled in one degree program, the outcome should be attached the CIP of the degree, not the major.

What if the student is doing an undergraduate degree in accounting and master’s degree at the same time?

Categorizing only the student’s highest level on the summary data tabs would be appropriate. However, by academic programs, they are allowed to be counted twice, so a dual enrollment would count the student under each. In this case, they are counted once on the bachelor’s program tab for accounting, and once on the master’s program tab for M.B.A.

We have a graduate with a Business Analytics Certificate—how should we report this?

We do not collect certificate programs information.

What do we do in the case of a student’s death after graduating?

In the case of a death, the graduate is excluded from the data.

At graduation, a student reported they are still seeking employment. We reached out get updates from them, but they did not respond to any email follow-up through the next six months. Should we count them in our data?

Yes, if a student verified still seeking status at graduation in their first FDS survey and then did not respond to subsequent surveys, then the last known outcome is still seeking. A school should identify them as still seeking in their data and include them in the knowledge rate.

For some of our graduates, we have data that they are working, but we don't know if it's FT or PT. How do we account for these in the reporting template since all employment is tracked either PT or FT?

There may be clues in the listing (e.g., the title of the position), salary that suggest whether the employment is either full or part-time. Use your professional judgment to determine the best category in which to place the student. You may also seek to verify and expand on the information by checking through an alternative source (e.g., the employer) or trying to contact the student directly. If there is no way to verify the data, we recommend removing it.

How do we provide input on the first-destination standards and protocols?

NACE welcomes your feedback and ideas surrounding the first-destination standards.

Please direct your comments and questions by contacting Angelena Galbraith at [email protected].