Data Notice – Admissions Office

The admissions office of Bard College Berlin, A Liberal Arts University gGmbH (henceforth referred to as “Bard College Berlin” or “the college”), collects, retains, and utilizes the data of people who have begun or completed an online application, signed up for communications or mailing lists, and requested information from the admissions office online or offline in order to process applications for admission to the college, plan further admissions and recruitment strategies, disburse scholarships and financial aid, and to provide the development, student life, financial aid, and registrar’s offices with information necessary for their operations. In addition, data must be provided to Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY prior to enrollment in order to ensure that it is not engaging with any individual or entity on a US government restricted entities list.

The registrar’s office is the college’s central point for data storage of enrolled students. In the registrar’s office, data is used to keep and maintain student academic records and provide related academic services such as the issuance of diplomas, transcripts, and other official documents attesting to the status of students at the college. The financial aid office uses applicants’ data to determine financial aid. The student life office makes use of the data of enrolled students to provide adequate services regarding student housing, on-campus life, and support for medical and personal needs of the students. The development office uses the data of enrolled students to further the interests of the college by soliciting donations or other forms of support to the college. Compliance staff at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY will run the names of pre-enrolled students through a screening process. The screening is conducted through the third-party platform Descartes Visual Compliance.

The admissions office of the college uses the third-party services of Technolutions and the Common Application to process applications and store applicant data. The information and data of all prospective students and applicants is stored indefinitely by the admissions office on these third-party platforms or on the servers of the admissions office itself. Applicants and prospective students who do not enroll in the college may request to have their information suppressed. The admissions office will then delete their information from its servers and request that their data be made anonymous by Technolutions so that it is untraceable to them. This request can be made in writing to the admissions office of the college by sending an email to [email protected].

The third parties Technolutions and the Common Application are fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) of the EU, as attested to in their respective privacy policies to which links are provided below. They can, therefore, be expected to provide all the necessary services and processes required in order to comply with GDPR for all residents of the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.

The admissions office of Bard College Berlin fully complies with the General Data Protection Regulations of the EU in its dealings with all people and institutions, regardless of their nationality or country of residence. An overview of the data held by the admissions office of the college is presented below, in accordance with the GDPR, effective May 25, 2018.

The following information is collected and retained by the admissions office of Bard College Berlin of all people who have begun or completed an online application; signed up for communications or mailing lists; or requested information from the college, on- or offline:

• Full name
• Date of birth
• Contact: address / email / telephone number
• Academic history

The following information supplied by those people who submit an admissions application to the college is collected and retained by the admissions office of Bard College Berlin:

• Citizenship
• Parental and family information including marital status, employment, academic history and contact details
• Ethnicity/Race (if provided)
• Prior academic record (including school reports, letters of reference, writing samples, sample academic or artistic work) and educational, employment, or training details
• Religious affiliation (if provided)
• Sex
• Disciplinary and criminal history (as provided in the application)
• Academic records

During the process of registration for newsletters and mailings the college stores information on the IP address of the computer used by prospective students at the time of registration. Additionally, email communications from Bard College Berlin contain a tracking code for log file recording and analysis. This allows a statistical analysis of the success or failure of online newsletter campaigns. Based on the embedded tracking code, Bard College Berlin may see if and when an email was opened by its recipient, information about the nature of the recipient’s operating system, and which links in the email were called up by the recipient. This data collection mechanism will only be active for those people who explicitly consent to it in the pop-up window that arises during the registration process. Such personal data collected by the tracking codes contained in email communications is stored and analyzed in a database in order to optimize the sending of the said communications, as well as to further adapt the content of future ones to the interests of the recipient. Recipients of newsletters not directly related to their application may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the relevant link at the bottom of all newsletters.

The admissions office of the college only handles the financial documents and information of applicants insofar as it must pass them on to the appropriate persons in the financial aid. These documents and information, however, are stored on the servers of the admissions office. The admissions office’s role in financial aid and scholarship disbursement is limited to recommending applicants for scholarships and financial aid based on their academic and extracurricular merits.

The privacy policy of the aforementioned third parties, Descartes Visual Compliance, Technolutions and the Common Application, may be found here:

The Common Application: commonapp.org/privacy-policy
Descartes Visual Compliance: www.descartes.com/privacy-center
Technolutions: technolutions.com/privacy-policy

Further information on Bard College Berlin’s privacy policy can be found here:
Datenschutzerklärung
Data Collection, Retention, and Utilization Notice to Students/Alumni
Privacy Policy – Newsletter
Data Notice for Donors

For any questions, contact the admissions office at [email protected]