Demographics of Sample

Total Sample Size

A total of 401 first-year students answered our survey. Therefore, we had a 24.3% response rate from the Class of 2023 (which has a total matriculation of 1650).

Gender Identity Breakdown

58.1% of respondents were female. 41.4% of respondents were male 0.25% of respondents were genderqueer. 0% of respondents preferred not to share their gender.

Dorm Breakdown

Analyzing the Data

Satisfaction of Harvard’s social culture based on whether or not they were listed among other respondents’ closest 4 friends

In our survey, we asked respondents to list 4 first-years they felt closest to. We also asked each respondent about how satisfied they were with their social connections (Very Dissatisfied, Dissatisfied, Neutral, Satisfied, or Very Satisfied).

To analyze this data, we counted how many times each respondent’s name appeared in other respondents’ top 4 closest friends lists. We compared this to each respondent’s satisfaction level.

Bar Plot

The horizontal line the graph indicates the mean satisfaction level across all first-years, which was 0.8004988. Since the satisfaction levels were scaled as a 0 if neutral and a 1 if satisfied, our respondents, on average, reported somewhere between neutral and satisfied (leaning satisfied) regarding their social connections.

Respondents who appeared in other respondents’ top 4 closest friends lists reported a higher level of satisfaction than respondents who did not appear. In fact, respondents who did not appear at all in other respondents’ top 4 closest friends lists reported a below average level of satisfaction, while respondents who did appear reported an above average level of satisfaction.

Scatter Plot

As seen above, the R value is relatively positive (> 0.5), demonstrating a very strong correlation between satisfaction score and number of appearances. In other words, the more someone appeared in other respondents’ top 4 friends lists, the higher their satisfaction score.

Do most “socially connected” students appear the most frequently in top 4 friend lists?

In our survey, we asked respondents to name the student they perceive to be the “most socially connected” in the Class of 2023. To create the graph below, we compiled the top 10 “most socially connected” students. Then, we counted how many times those students appeared in other respondents’ top 4 friend lists.

Are students who know more students more satisfied?

We also asked respondents how many members of the 2023 class they would recognize on the street. Below were our results:

We also asked respondents how many freshmen they would feel comfortable sitting down with at Annenberg: respondents were given the options 0-50, 50-100, 100-250, 250-500, 500-1000, 1000+. We correlated those results with the level of satisfaction. Below were our results: