SVA only collects personal information on a voluntary basis. Our website may be visited without revealing any personal information about yourself. However, there are several pieces of "passive" information we collect from you each time you access our website. We log your computer's IP address, the URL that referred you to our site, if any, the pages you access at our sites, and the type and version of both your operating system and Web browser. We also track any terms and phrases that you enter into our search engine service. None of this information is ever used to personally identify you or any other user, but rather it is collected and reviewed by select employees of SVA only, and used to generate reports of site usage. These reports help us to identify what parts of the site are most popular, what search engines visitors are using to find our websites, and what things visitors are having trouble finding. These reports help us determine overall website usage, identify problem areas, and ultimately provide better services for visitors like yourself.

Certain services provided by our website may utilize "cookies." A cookie is a small piece of data that is sent to your Web browser from one of our websites and stored on your computer's hard disk. A cookie cannot read any data off your hard disk, read cookie files created by other websites or perform any other action against your computer. You can configure your Web browser to allow or disallow cookies by changing your browser's options or preferences, but disabling cookies may prevent some areas of our website from working properly. Some of the cookies we send are "persistent cookies," files which remain resident on your computer until deleted or until they expire at a predetermined time. Persistent cookies are most commonly used to provide visitors with a customized experience by recording user preferences from previous visits. Other cookies we use are temporary, and expire as soon as your visit to our website terminates. They are commonly used for technical purposes to enable seamless navigation.

From time to time, there will be a service provided by our website that will require you to provide personal information. If you choose to share personal information with us—by sending us a message or filling out an electronic form with personal information—we will only use that information as necessary to conduct official SVA business. For example, in order to complete our online Admissions Application, you obviously must provide us with some personal information. We will use this information you supply to us for the sole purpose of reviewing and processing your application. Some of the information may be saved for a designated period to comply with applicable legal requirements. We will never disclose any information that we gather from you to vendors, sponsors, other third parties or other government agencies, unless required to do so by state or federal law.

If you choose not to provide personal information through our website, you may be unable to utilize some of the features we offer to our online visitors. When it is possible, we will attempt to provide you with an alternative method for the same service.

Any information that you provide to SVA through this website is safeguarded by a secure SLL server with 128-bit encryption.  If you choose to opt-out from receiving any newsletters, wish to review, update or delete any personal information that we may have collected, you can do so by contacting us via e-mail at webmaster@sva.edu or by regular mail at 209 East 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010 and we will gladly honor such request.

The SVA website contains a variety of links to other websites not hosted by the School of Visual Arts. SVA is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of any such website. Content and views presented by these sites may not reflect the views of SVA. We therefore recommend that you read the privacy policies of any website that you link to before submitting any personal information. Also remember that any time you voluntarily disclose information in an unencrypted online forum, such as e-mail, web forms or chat rooms, that information can be collected and used by others. While SVA is committed to protecting your privacy while you are on our site, it is ultimately your responsibility to protect your personal information while you are online.

To file a complaint regarding the use of personal information, to report a violation of our Privacy Policy, or if you have questions pertaining to this Privacy Policy, please contact us via e-mail at webmaster@sva.edu or by regular mail at 209 East 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010.

By using our website, you consent to the School of Visual Arts Internet Privacy Statement as specified above. If you do not consent to this Privacy Statement, please do not use this site. We reserve the right to amend this Policy from time to time, and will post such amendments on this page. Therefore, please check back to this page regularly so that you are always aware of our policies concerning information collection. Your continued use of this site signifies your consent to these changes.