Much writing center assessment literature focuses on the deep importance of local, institutional context. Still, a tension exists in the field more generally, and in assessment research specifically, between a reliance on local practice and a reliance on shared lore (Driscoll and Perdue; Thompson et al.). This tension can be fruitfully examined through exit surveys because they are one of the most common writing center assessment tools. These three authors, researchers at three very different institutions--designed a cross-institutional student exit survey to examine the tension between local context and shared practice in order to interrogate the presence, nature, and extent of any similarities and differences. (Contains 6 tables and 4 notes.)