This study started off as a basic question: how do those of us in charge of translation programs rate how successful we have been in the process? The recent focus on competences highlighted in particular by the EMT (European Master’s in Translation)’s selection process, is a welcome shift in translation training, an invitation as it were to carry out longitudinal studies to answer the question asked in the title. This paper describes how this was done, first for internal reasons, then for also for research ones, through survey with incoming and outgoing students in the second year Master’s translation course ILTS (French shorthand for language engineering and specialized translation, at Université Paris Diderot). The endeavour was carried out for four years in a row, with a total number of 138 respondents. In September each incoming student was requested to indicate their perceived level of competence on a scale from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) for each of the 48 competences at hand. In the following June, these students were asked the same questions. Just when these competences are being reviewed at the European level, it seems relevant to analyse the results of the survey, taking into account some possible biases, and suggesting possible ways forward. This then leads to the broader topic of what it means to use indicators in a field that was long considered as an art and to call into question the use of these (or other) indicators. What does this reveal as far as the unification of the translation field is concerned, and could such surveys lend themselves to broader use to allow for various kinds of comparison (translation programs in different countries, and translation programs/established translators at the national level, in particular)?