Commitment to Privacy: The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) is committed to data privacy. These Terms of Service (Terms) are designed to inform you of how THECB collects and processes the information you share when you utilize ApplyTexas. ApplyTexas is a centralized web portal that allows students to complete one application for admission and submit it to multiple Texas institutions of higher education. THECB manages the ApplyTexas System.

Access Conditioned on Accepting Terms: Your access and use of ApplyTexas is conditioned on your acceptance of and compliance with these terms. These terms apply to all persons who access or use ApplyTexas.

Updates to Terms: THECB reserves the right to modify and/or correct this agreement at any time; your continued use of ApplyTexas implies agreement with the modified Terms. As additional services are provided, these Terms may change. THECB seeks to notify registered users when Terms change.

You must be at least 13 to access ApplyTexas: The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) requires that all online service providers obtain parental consent before knowingly collecting personally identifiable information from children under the age of 13. THECB does not knowingly collect or solicit any personally identifiable information from children under the age of 13. Children under the age of 13 are prohibited from using any ApplyTexas services offered through THECB. If THECB learns that our agency or a partner entity has collected information from a person under the age of 13 that does not comply with COPPA, THECB will delete that collected information in a reasonably prudent amount of time from when THECB obtains notice that the information was collected. If you are younger than 13 years old and wish to use ApplyTexas services, please contact your school counselor.

Payment of fees: If your application has a fee, you will pay this fee directly to the institution to which you are applying. After you submit your application, the Institution will contact you to arrange payment. Your application is not complete until the institution to which you are applying has processed any application fee.

Address Verification: For address verification purposes, we will send your mailing address to Google for deliverability verification via an immediate secure web services call. Google will not retain your address.

Non-discrimination Clause: Texas institutions of higher education do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or age.

Laws Protecting Your Data: THECB follows all relevant U.S. and Texas privacy laws. Specifically, data you provide ApplyTexas is considered confidential under §61.031(d) and may only be released in conformity with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. §1232g; 34 CFR Part 99). FERPA protects students’ personally identifiable information and prohibits the release of education records without students’ permission or consent, except for explicit circumstances in which disclosure is permitted by law. Additionally, the Texas Public Information Act considers certain applications confidential under Tex. Gov’t Code §552.114.

Accessing Your Data: With a few exceptions, you are entitled upon your request to be informed about the collected information. Under Sections 552.021 and 552.023 of the Texas Government Code, you are entitled to receive and review the information. Under Section 559.004 of the Texas Government Code, you are entitled to correct information held by an institution that is incorrect. You may correct information held by any institution to which you apply by contacting the institution directly.

Records Retention: Information that is collected about you will be retained and maintained as required by Texas records retention laws (Section 441.180 et seq. of the Texas Government Code) and rules. Different types of information are kept for different periods of time. Data will be destroyed per THECB record retention policies.

Cookies: Cookies are small pieces of data stored by the web browser. Cookies are used to remember information about preferences and pages you have visited. We use Session Cookies to operate our service, and we use Security Cookies for security purposes. ApplyTexas does not share cookie information with external third parties, nor with the college or university to which you are applying.

Information Storage and Security: Although no computer system is 100 percent secure, the administrators of ApplyTexas utilize extensive security measures to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of the information under their control. Information collected in ApplyTexas is stored on secure servers. The Department of Information Resources along with THECB staff regularly scan our web servers, and certified independent security specialists regularly audit our security measures and respective systems for vulnerabilities. All data is encrypted while being sent to any outside entities.

Information Collected by Apply Texas:  

Personal data: While using our service, we may ask you to provide us with personally identifiable information as part of your account with us and as part of any application to the institution(s) of your choice. These include:

• Name (yours, your parents’/guardians’, and an emergency contact)
  • Date of Birth (yours)
  • Social Security Number/ITIN (yours)
  • Email address (yours, your parents’/guardians’, and an emergency contact)
  • Phone number (yours, your parents’/guardians’, and an emergency contact)
  • Mailing address (yours, your parents’/guardians’, and an emergency contact)

Other application data: We collect all other data included in the answers you give to questions on your application(s).

Other Information Collected: While personally identifiable application data is considered confidential, some information collected from our websites, including the summary server log information, may be subject to disclosure under the Texas Public Information Act or other applicable state or federal laws. This means that while we do not actively share information, in some cases we may be compelled by law to release information gathered from our Web servers. Our Web servers generate temporary logs that contain the following information:

• Internet address of computer being used
  • Web pages requested
  • Referring web page
  • Browser used
  • Date and time

Uses outside of the Application Process: The THECB retains a deidentified subset of your application data (including some of the personal data listed above). Persons authorized by THECB access the data for research purposes. Additionally, THECB may share data with authorized representatives who contract with the agency to operate ApplyTexas.

Data submitted through ApplyTexas will be shared as follows:

Texas high schools: We display a small set of personal data in the ApplyTexas Counselor Suite for use by your high school counselor (if your high school is in Texas, and if your application is a freshman 4-year or 2-year application). In some instances, we send some of this data via a secure portal with closely managed authorizations. The data is used by high school counselors to track admission application progress, Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and Texas Application for State Financial Aid (TASFA) submissions. The data can include:

• Your name, date of birth, email address, phone number, and high school graduation date.
  • FAFSA or TASFA Filing Status Information including only Student’s first name; Student’s last name; Student’s date of birth; Student’s ZIP Code; FAFSA or TASFA completed date; FAFSA or TASFA processed date; a Selected for Verification flag (e.g., Selected for verification- Yes or No); and a Financial Aid completion flag, (e.g., Completed- Yes or No)). Other data you input into the FAFSA or TASFA is not stored, received, or relayed by ApplyTexas.
  • Certain data about your application(s) in ApplyTexas, including the institution to which you are applying, which semester, and progress in the application (e.g., submitted, open, expired).

Colleges and universities: We store and send your personal data and all other data included in the answers you give to questions on the application to the college/university of your choice. We show all saved and submitted application data to the administrators at the college/university that you choose (via our Administrative Portal, which is only accessible to authorized administrators from that school). Application data is sent via Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) to the National Student Clearinghouse for distribution to colleges and universities to allow processing of your application. Under Texas law, information collected about you through this application may be held by any institution of higher education to which you apply. We also send the following data to aid in processing your application:

• An application ID generated by our site;
• Texas Education Agency ID numbers for the schools you attended; and
• Application Type (2-year, freshman, transfer, graduate, etc.).

Transcript Request and Texas Education Agency: If you request a transcript from within ApplyTexas (2-year and 4-year freshman applications to participating high schools and colleges/universities), we will send the request to your identified high school through the Counselor Suite. Authorized personnel at your high school will process the request through the Texas Education Agency.

Marketing and Advertising: No data collected will be used for external marketing purposes or sold to any party for any reason.

Termination of Service: We may terminate or suspend access to our services immediately, without prior notice or liability, for any reason whatsoever, including without limitation if you breach these Terms.

Links to Other Websites: ApplyTexas may contain links to third-party websites or services that are not owned or controlled by THECB. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party websites or services. You further acknowledge and agree that we shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any such content, goods, or services available on or through any such web sites or services.

Ownership of Intellectual Property: THECB shall own all intellectual property rights in or relating to ApplyTexas. “Intellectual property rights” means any rights or titles to inventions, discoveries, concepts, methods, processes, data, trade secrets, branding, trademarks, copyrights, computer programs and related documentation, works of authorship fixed in a medium of expression, or mask works, whether or not patentable, copyrightable, eligible for registration as a trademark, or subject to mask work rights or other similar statutory rights, as well as applications for any such rights which are created or produced to deliver ApplyTexas.

Sovereign Immunity: No part of these Terms, nor your use of ApplyTexas, or any subsequent modification of these Terms shall be construed: (1) as a waiver of the doctrine of sovereign immunity or immunity from suit as provided for in the Texas Constitution and the laws of the State of Texas, (2) to extend liability to THECB beyond such liability provided for in the Texas Constitution and the laws of the State of Texas, or (3) as a waiver of any immunity provided by the 11th Amendment or any other provision of the United States Constitution or any immunity recognized by the courts and the laws of the State of Texas and the United States. The State of Texas and THECB specifically retain such immunity and all defenses available to them under the laws of the State of Texas and the United States or the common law.

If you have questions about this policy or you believe that your personal information has been released without your consent, contact the ApplyTexas Help Desk.