You can oversample to get the results of any group of undergraduates, even sophomores and juniors (NSSE normally samples just first-year students and seniors). For instance, you might want to sample engineers who took a writing-intensive course. Or you might want to oversample students participating in certain learning or living communities.

There are two kinds of oversampling methods. A "targeted oversample" is performed by NSSE; your school provides the the names of the students you want to oversample (plus some additional group information), and they survey them as they administer the survey to the random sample. A "local oversample" is performed by the school; NSSE provides the paper versions of the survey, which you can bring into places you want to oversample, and send in the completed paper surveys.

NOTE: oversamples are not included in your overall institutional snapshot nor in the data used to compare your institution to others. NSSE does this to ensure that schools cannot make themselves look better by oversampling their honors students and won't be hurt by oversampling students who might be struggling.

For information about oversampling, including costs, see NSSE’s FAQ at http://nsse.iub.edu/faq/ifaq.cfm#paper_web. If you have further questions, consult NSSE’s Dan Bureau (consorti@indiana.edu).