College Brain

College Brain — Privacy Policy

Last updated: 05/28/2026

1. Who we are

College Brain ("College Brain," "we," "us," or "our") operates the website at collegebrain.ai (the "Service"), which provides college admissions assessment and guidance tools.

If you have questions about this policy or your data, contact us at privacy@collegebrain.ai.

2. The short version

We built College Brain to give students honest, data-grounded college admissions guidance. To do that, we collect information about your academic profile and college goals. Here's what matters most:

  • We collect academic and profile information you provide, plus some technical data automatically.
  • We use it only to provide and improve the Service.
  • We do not sell your personal information.
  • We do not show third-party advertising in the Service.
  • You can access, export, or delete your data at any time.
  • The Service is intended for users age 13 and older. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13.

The rest of this policy explains the details.

3. Information we collect

3.1 Information you provide directly

When you create an account and use the Service, you may provide:

Account information

  • Name or display name
  • Email address
  • Authentication credentials (or identifiers from Google, Apple, or Facebook if you sign in through them)
  • Date of birth (used to verify you are at least 13)
  • Account type (student or parent)

Academic profile

  • Grade level and high school name
  • GPA (unweighted, weighted, and UC GPA where applicable)
  • Course rigor and AP/IB coursework
  • Standardized test scores (SAT, ACT) where you choose to provide them
  • Intended major or field of study

Activities and credentials

  • Extracurricular activities, leadership roles, research, athletics, and arts involvement
  • Awards and recognition

College list and application data

  • Schools you are considering
  • Application strategy (early decision, early action, etc.)
  • Demonstrated interest activity you log

Family and legacy information (optional)

  • Information about relatives who attended specific colleges (relationship, school, degree type, graduation year, and optionally donor or volunteer status)
  • First-generation status
  • Family income range (only if you choose to provide it for financial-fit estimates)

Uploaded documents

  • Transcripts or other documents you upload for the Service to analyze

3.2 Information collected automatically

  • Device and browser type
  • IP address and general location (city/region level)
  • Usage data (pages visited, features used, time spent)
  • Cookies and similar technologies necessary to operate the Service and keep you logged in

3.3 Information from third-party sign-in

If you sign in with Google, Apple, or Facebook, we receive your name and email address from that provider. If you use Apple's "Hide My Email" feature, we receive a relay email address rather than your actual email. We do not receive your password from these providers.

4. Sensitive information and a note on family data

Some of the information College Brain collects is sensitive — particularly academic records, family income, and information about your relatives' educational history.

Family and legacy data describes people who are not users of the Service. When you enter information about a relative who attended a particular college, you are providing information about a third party. We use this information solely to assess legacy considerations for your own college list. We do not contact these relatives, build separate profiles about them, or use this data for any other purpose. You can delete it at any time.

We apply heightened care to all sensitive data: it is encrypted, access is restricted, it is never used in aggregate analytics in a way that could identify you, and it is never sold or shared with third parties for their own purposes.

5. How we use your information

We use the information we collect to:

  • Provide the core Service — assess your profile, generate probability estimates, build and balance your college list, and produce guidance
  • Save your profile so you don't have to re-enter it
  • Analyze uploaded transcripts to auto-fill your profile (with your review)
  • Improve the accuracy and usefulness of the Service
  • Communicate with you about your account and the Service
  • Maintain the security and integrity of the Service
  • Comply with legal obligations

We do not use your personal information to train third-party AI models in a way that would expose your data, and we do not sell your personal information.

6. How we share information

We share information only in these limited circumstances:

Service providers. We use third-party vendors to operate the Service — for example, Vercel for hosting providers, database services, authentication providers, and AI processing services. These providers may process your data only to perform services for us and are bound by confidentiality obligations.

Vercel for hosting provider, Neon for database host, Anthropic, OpenAI for AI analysis, Clerk as a authentication provider.

Legal requirements. We may disclose information if required by law, subpoena, or to protect the rights, safety, or property of College Brain or others.

Business transfer. If College Brain is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred. We will notify you before your information becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

With your direction. If you are a student who links a parent account (or vice versa), the linked account can see the information you choose to share with it.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with advertisers.

7. AI processing

College Brain uses artificial intelligence, including third-party AI services, to analyze transcripts, generate guidance, and produce assessments. When we send your data to an AI processing service, we send only what is necessary for the task, and our agreements with those providers restrict them from using your data for their own purposes. AI-generated estimates and guidance are informational only — see our Terms of Service regarding their limitations.

8. Your rights and choices

You can:

  • Access the information we hold about you
  • Export all your data in a portable format (JSON) at any time
  • Correct inaccurate information
  • Delete your account and all associated data — we perform a hard delete within 30 days of your request (and within 24 hours for family/legacy data specifically)
  • Withdraw consent for optional data collection (such as family income)

To exercise any of these rights, use the controls in your account settings or contact us at privacy@collegebrain.ai.

California residents (CCPA/CPRA)

If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what personal information we collect, to request deletion, to correct inaccurate information, and to opt out of any sale or sharing of personal information. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined under California law. You will not be discriminated against for exercising your rights.

Other states and regions

Residents of other states with privacy laws (including Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, and others) and other jurisdictions may have similar rights. Contact us to exercise them.

9. Users under 18

The Service is intended for users age 13 and older.

  • We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn we have collected information from a child under 13, we will delete it promptly. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us information, contact us at privacy@collegebrain.ai.
  • For users aged 13 to 17: We encourage you to involve a parent or guardian in your use of the Service. We apply heightened care to data from minors, do not sell it, and do not use it for targeted advertising. [Depending on legal review, you may need verifiable parental consent mechanisms for certain minors — confirm with counsel.]

10. Data security

We protect your information using a combination of technical and organizational measures. All data transmitted between you and the Service is encrypted in transit using industry-standard TLS. Data stored in our database is encrypted at rest at the storage level (AES-256), including backups. We restrict access to personal data to those who need it to operate the Service, and we use secure authentication to protect accounts.

No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure. While we take the sensitivity of student and family data seriously and design our systems to protect it, we cannot guarantee absolute security. If we become aware of a data breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as required by law.

11. Data retention

We keep your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the Service. If you delete your account, we delete your personal data within 30 days, except where we are required to retain certain records by law. Family and legacy data is hard-deleted within 24 hours of a deletion request.

12. International users

College Brain is operated from the United States. If you access the Service from outside the U.S., your information will be processed in the U.S., which may have different data protection laws than your country.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you through the Service or by email before the changes take effect. The "Last updated" date at the top reflects the most recent version.

14. Contact us

Questions, requests, or concerns:

Email: privacy@collegebrain.ai

This policy was last updated on 05/28/2026. College Brain is committed to handling your information honestly and carefully.