Data Privacy Principles

The College Board is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that works to promote excellence and equity in education. We use students' personal data to help them access and succeed in college. We are committed to protecting student data—keep reading to see how we do it. Visit our Privacy Statement to read our comprehensive privacy policies.

  1. Notice: College Board gives notice to students, parents, educators, and our other stakeholders about how information is collected, used, disclosed, and secured in our Privacy Statement and policies and when the information is collected. The Privacy Statement also explains why we collect personally identifiable information: to administer tests and deliver educational opportunities to students.
     

  2. Choice: College Board gives students the opportunity to choose what personally identifiable information they give us and how we share it. Students and families decide how much additional information they disclose beyond the information needed to register for our tests and programs. They can also change their preferences whenever they choose.

    College Board lets students choose how they receive certain communications, such as text messages, emails, and phone calls. We do not send students text messages or call them unless they specifically opt in to these forms of communication (we only call students when necessary to resolve test-related issues).

    To encourage parents and guardians to get involved in their child's educational choices we offer "CC: a Parent." If students give us a parent or guardian’s name and email address, that parent or guardian will get an email from College Board asking if they want copies of College Board emails their children have requested or other important information on College Board services.
     

  3. Transparency: In the College Board Privacy Statement and on collegeboard.org we provide extensive details about how we collect, use, and disclose students’ information, and their right to access, correct, and delete it. During the registration process, we ask students for their name, date of birth, gender, and address. We may also ask for phone numbers and email addresses, school name, grade level or expected graduation date, ethnicity, and a parent’s name, email address, and education level. Below are examples of College Board transparency and information use. See our Privacy Statement and Program-Specific Privacy Policies for more details.

    School Day Administrations
    College Board tests may be administered by schools, school districts, or teachers during the school day. Sometimes these schools share with us students’ personally identifiable information to register the students for College Board tests. Schools may share students’ names, addresses, dates of birth, and gender, and in certain cases, information about students to help College Board decide if they qualify for fee waivers. Students provide any remaining personal information themselves. We report scores to students and their schools, districts, and states to help measure educational progress and support a student’s path to college.

    Student Search Service™
    Student Search Service is a free, optional service that helps students start a conversation with colleges and scholarship organizations. If students choose to participate in Student Search Service, they agree to share their name, address, college interest, and Student Data Questionnaire responses with colleges, universities, and nonprofit scholarship and educational programs. This information is used for recruitment, scholarship opportunities, and college planning outreach. College Board does not sell student information; however, qualified colleges, universities, nonprofit scholarship services, and nonprofit educational organizations do pay a license fee to use this information to recruit students and provide opportunities in connection with educational or scholarship programs. These license fees are reinvested in our nonprofit mission. For example, these organizations must sign a strict license agreement that outlines how student information can be used. College Board maintains a direct relationship with, and oversight of, all organizations using this student information and monitors the use of student information by licensed organizations. Students can opt out of Student Search Service at any time. More information about Student Search Service.

    Third Parties
    We share a limited amount of personally identifiable information with third parties if it’s needed to administer testing services and provide educational opportunities. For example, we share information with Alorica, our customer service provider; and we share SAT and PSAT-related assessment scores with Khan Academy® if a student chooses to link their College Board account with their Khan Academy account to access Official SAT Practice. Third parties can’t relicense, sell, or otherwise repurpose the information. See our Privacy Statement for more information about our use and disclosure of personally identifiable information.
     

  4. Security: We follow industry standard security practices to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once it’s received. College Board has achieved ISO 27001 certification for our information security program, is certified by third-party auditors annually, provides annual SOC 2 reporting on our information security program, and is PCI compliant. These practices help us proactively manage risks and controls. We never ask students or parents to send credit card, bank, or password information over the phone or by email.