Exterior photo of The Graduate School building.

Privacy Policy

Privacy Notice – The Graduate School

The Graduate School at Montclair State University is committed to safeguarding the privacy of individuals who apply for admission to the University. This Privacy Policy outlines the University’s collection, use, and disclosure of information provided by 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 the Graduate School

As part of the application process, the University may collect Sensitive Information from you.  For purposes of this Privacy Notice, Sensitive Information is defined as your voluntary response in the application for admission to questions concerning your race, and ethnic origin.  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.

As part of the application process, the University also collects general information from you such as your name, address, phone number, and education history.  For purposes of this Privacy Notice, Information refers to all other information that you have provided to The Graduate School in your application. 

University Use of Information

The Graduate School at Montclair State University will use Information that you provide to us and Information we collect about you to administer your application. In addition, we may use your Information to analyze and improve our admissions process, for outreach efforts, and for other University processes and functions related to your admission as a student. We also may de-identify your Sensitive Information to use for research or statistical purposes.  If you are accepted and enroll in the University as a student, we may use and share certain Information and Sensitive Information with other University offices and units, as necessary and appropriate, to administer your academic record, provide support services, comply with University policy and applicable laws, and deliver education, advising, residential housing, athletic programs, student development, financial aid, and communicate University programs, activities and fundraising if by the Montclair State University Foundation. 

Online Payments

We may ask you to provide credit card information as payment 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 University’s Privacy Notice for Website.

Third Parties

We may 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.

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.

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 de-identified Information and Sensitive 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.

Required by Law. We may share your Information and Sensitive 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 and Sensitive 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 The Graduate School in accordance with the applicable retention periods in the Record Retention Schedule adopted by the State of New Jersey, Department of the Treasury, Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services – Record Management Services that is applicable to 4 Year Colleges and Universities.

Your information will be destroyed upon your request unless applicable law requires destruction after the expiration of the 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 is also subject to the Record Retention Schedule adopted by the State of New Jersey, Department of the Treasury, Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services – Record Management Services that is applicable to 4 Year Colleges and Universities. You also have the right to withdraw consent to the use of your Sensitive Information, which will not affect the lawfulness of the University’s use prior to receipt of your request. You may exercise these rights by either updating your information when functionally possible in the technology systems made available to applicants and students by the University, or by contacting: eugdpr-grad@montclair.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.

Updates to this Policy

We may update or change this policy at any time. Your continued use of this site after any such change indicates your acceptance of such changes.

Last updated on 4/20/18.