Objective To investigate the effective, economic and viable long-term mechanism of Sichuan college students’ social practice. Methods A questionnaire was designed to investigate the students from North Sichuan Medical College and other 7 colleges in Sichuan province randomly. A secondary research of China students social practice status was combined and the results of Sichuan and other areas were compared. Results A total of 2 200 questionnaires were issued, of which 1 920 effective ones were taken back with the recovery rate of 87.27%. The most common forms of social practice were social investigation (47.5%), public welfare labor (42.3%), novitiate/internship (38.7%); the most interesting contents of social practice were social morality education (54.79%), credit morality education (53.07%), professional skill education (51.88%), and near 80% college students thought the contents had close relationships with their major. College students hoped that the contents could combine their job-hunting, characteristics of their major, local economy, and needs of social development. The social practice department they wanted to go most was public welfare or civil service departments (43.7%), corporations (27.8%), and government bodies (19.2%). The most difficult thing was to get connected with target department, shortage of fund, empty topics, hard-to-determine practice projects (44.1%), and lack of teachers’ guidance (43.6%). Degree of satisfaction from the students was moderate. Compared with other universities, social practice of Sichuan undergraduate students had broader coverage and was more closely related to students’ majors with more attention on the combination with moral education and employment. Conclusion Sichuan college students have higher expectations of social practice. However, the range and the time of actual participation are limited. The students are not very satisfied with status of social practice. The social practice of Sichuan college students should give prominence to the local features, be close to the students and serve the local place, strengthen the construction of practice bases, and establish effective systems of teacher training, funding, principle security mechanism and evaluation system.