The Brandeis University Office of Undergraduate Admissions is committed to safeguarding the privacy of individuals who apply for admission to the University. This Privacy Notice outlines the University’s collection, use, and disclosure of information provided by prospective students and applicants. When you submit your application to us, or otherwise provide us with information in your application for admission, or use our websites and other services, you consent to our collection, use, and disclosure of that information as described in this Privacy Notice.
Information Collected by Undergraduate Admissions
The Brandeis University Office of Undergraduate Admissions collects and processes Information and Sensitive Information from prospective students and applicants only as necessary in the exercise of the University's legitimate interests, functions and responsibilities as a private research higher education institution. For purposes of this Privacy Notice, Sensitive Information is defined as your voluntary response to questions concerning your race, ethnic origin, and history of criminal conviction. Sensitive Information also includes religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, health data, or sexual orientation that may be volunteered by you in your personal essay submitted with your application for admission.
The University also collects general information from you such as your name, address, phone number, and education. For purposes of this Privacy Notice, Information refers to any other information concerning a natural person that is created by or provided to the Brandeis University Office of Undergraduate Admissions from or concerning students, applicants, or alumni.
University Use of Information
The Information and Sensitive Information collected from prospective students and applicants is provided with their consent and shared with internal and external parties for outreach efforts, to improve our admissions process, to evaluate whether an applicant is suitable for admission to the University, and other related University processes and functions. The University also uses Information and Sensitive Information to conduct general demographic and statistical research. If you are accepted for admission to the University, we will use and share your Information and Sensitive Information internally with other University offices and units as necessary and appropriate to support your success as a student, to deliver education, advising, residence, athletic, student development, financial aid, to communicate the University’s activities, and for fundraising.
Online Payments
We may collect credit card information from you for your application fee and enrollment deposit. A reputable third-party financial institution handles our credit card transactions.
Whenever you transmit credit card information through our site, the numbers and letters are scrambled using encryption technology to protect the information from being stolen or intercepted. To protect your security, we do not allow you to store your credit card number from session to session.
Cookies
The University’s use of cookies and other data from information technology can be found in the Privacy Statement for the Website.
Third Parties
We may also disclose your information to third parties as follows:
• Consent: We may use and disclose your Information and Sensitive Information to third parties if we have your consent to do so.
• Parents and Guardians: In some cases, we may share your Information with a parent or guardian if necessary to properly complete the admissions process or in the event of an emergency.
• Service Providers: We may use third parties to support our operations. In such cases, we may share your Sensitive Information and Information with such third parties who are obligated to keep it confidential and safeguard it from unauthorized disclosure.
• School Counselors and Administrators: We may use your Information and share it with your school counselors and administrators.
• University Affiliated Programs: We may share your Information with third parties that are affiliated with the University for the purpose of contacting you about goods, services, or experiences that may be of interest to you.
• Research and Studies: We may share your Information with third parties that study admissions or other topics related to higher education. We may also share your Information with third parties that conduct research or develop products or services designed to improve admissions and other higher education functions. If we do share your Information for this purpose, it will be de-identified.
• Required by Law: We may share your Information with third parties to the extent we are required to do so by law, court order, or subpoena.
• Emergency Circumstances: We may share your Information with third parties if, in our sole judgment, such disclosure is necessary to protect the health, safety, or property of any person.
• De-Identified and Aggregate Information: We may collect, use and disclose Sensitive Information or other Information about our applicants in de-identified or aggregate form without limitation.
Security
You must have a secure browser—one that supports secure transmission of data across the Internet—to apply online to the University. For more information about your browser’s security features, use your browser’s help feature.
We seek to implement appropriate security measures to protect your information when you transmit it to us and when we store it on our systems. Unfortunately, no data transmission or storage can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. When you send us credit card information over the Internet, we use industry standard SSL (secure socket layer) encryption. Your application account password is protected so that only you can access it and view the information that you provide to us through your application portal. We strongly advise you not to share your password with anyone.
Retention and Destruction of Your Information
Your information will be retained by Undergraduate Admissions in accordance with the applicable retention periods pursuant to state and federal law. Your information will be destroyed upon your request unless applicable law requires destruction after the expiration of an applicable retention period. The manner of destruction shall be appropriate to preserve and ensure the confidentiality of your information given the level of sensitivity, value and criticality to the University.
Your Rights
You have the right to request access to, a copy of, rectification, restriction in the use of, or erasure of your information. These rights differ depending upon the location within the world where Information and Sensitive Information was created or shared. The erasure of your information shall be subject to the retention periods of applicable state and federal laws, and to the legitimate interests of Brandeis to keep necessary records relative to your application to and/or attendance at the university. If you have provided consent to the use of your information, you have the right to withdraw consent without affecting the lawfulness of the University’s use of the information prior to receipt of your request. You may exercise these rights by contacting admissions@brandeis.edu.
Information created in the European Union will be transferred out of the European Union to the University. If you feel the University has not complied with applicable foreign laws regulating such information, you have the right to file a complaint with the appropriate supervisory authority in the European Union.
We may update or change this notice at any time. Your continued use of this site after any such change indicates your acceptance of such changes.
Last updated: May 25th, 2018