South Africa's external quality assurance agency, the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC), commenced its first cycle of institutional audits in 2004. During 2005, three public higher education institutions were audited, namely the University of Cape Town, the University of Stellenbosch and Rhodes University. The process of preparing for and undergoing an external audit is being observed with great interest by the country's higher education sector, particularly by those institutions still to be audited. This paper compares the three institutional contexts within which the audit preparations took place and analyses the results of the internal feedback surveys, as well as the recommendations contained in the HEQC's audit reports, with particular reference to the goals of the HEQC's audit framework. Transformation imperatives have informed the approach of the HEQC to the audits. The paper concludes that, although each institution approached the audit in different, context-specific ways, the institutional experience of the audit process and its initial outcomes were remarkably similar. (Contains 5 tables.)