CollegeHound Privacy Policy

Last Updated: May 19, 2026

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully before using CollegeHound.

CollegeHound is a college planning platform designed to help high school students and families organize the college application process. We know that college planning involves personal, academic, family, and financial information, and we take that responsibility seriously.

This Privacy Policy explains how CollegeHound collects, uses, shares, protects, and retains information when you use our website, digital binder, AI-powered features, subscriptions, communications, and related services collectively, the "Service."

By using CollegeHound, you agree to the practices described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

1. Who We Are

CollegeHound is operated by CollegeHound, BitWeary LLC, or its applicable owner or affiliate collectively, "CollegeHound," "we," "us," or "our."

CollegeHound provides tools that help students and families organize college planning information, including grades, test scores, activities, college lists, essays, scholarships, deadlines, tasks, and related planning materials.

CollegeHound may also provide AI-powered features, including Scout, to help users organize information, understand next steps, identify planning gaps, and receive personalized college planning guidance.

2. Information We Collect

We collect information that you provide directly, information created through your use of the Service, and certain technical information collected automatically.

2.1 Account Information

When you create or manage an account, we may collect:

• Name.
• Email address.
• Phone number, if provided.
• Password or authentication information.
• Account role, such as student, parent, guardian, counselor, advisor, or invited collaborator.
• Profile information you choose to provide.
• Subscription, trial, or promotion status.

2.2 Student and College Planning Information

CollegeHound is designed to help families organize college planning information. Depending on how you use the Service, you may choose to enter or upload information such as:

• Student name and profile information.
• Grade level, high school, graduation year, and academic interests.
• Courses, grades, GPA information, transcripts, and academic history.
• Standardized test scores, AP scores, IB information, or other testing information.
• Activities, athletics, clubs, jobs, volunteer work, leadership roles, awards, honors, and achievements.
• College lists, college preferences, visit notes, ratings, and application status.
• Essay prompts, drafts, links, notes, summaries, and related application materials.
• Scholarship lists, deadlines, requirements, and application materials.
• Tasks, reminders, deadlines, notes, and planning history.
• Contacts related to college planning, such as recommenders, counselors, coaches, admissions representatives, or scholarship contacts.

You decide what information to enter into CollegeHound. Please do not upload information that you do not have permission to share.

2.3 Family and Collaborator Information

If you create, join, or are invited to a family account, we may collect information about your relationship to the student or family account, your permissions, and your activity within that account.

Family accounts may allow students, parents, guardians, and other authorized collaborators to view, add, edit, or manage shared college planning information, depending on account settings and permissions.

2.4 Payment and Subscription Information

If you purchase a paid subscription, start a paid plan, redeem a promotion, or participate in a trial, we may collect information needed to manage billing and access, such as:

• Plan type.
• Subscription status.
• Trial or promotional code information.
• Billing contact information.
• Transaction history.
• Payment confirmation information.

Payment card information is processed by our payment processor. CollegeHound does not store full credit card numbers on our own systems.

2.5 Communications

If you contact us, request support, respond to a survey, participate in feedback, or communicate with us by email, form, or other channel, we may collect the content of those communications and related contact information.

2.6 Information Collected Automatically

When you use the Service, we may automatically collect certain technical and usage information, including:

• IP address.
• Browser type.
• Device type.
• Operating system.
• Pages viewed.
• Features used.
• Time spent on the Service.
• Referring pages or campaign links.
• Error reports.
• Performance data.
• Log data.
• Cookie and similar technology information.

This information helps us operate, secure, troubleshoot, improve, and understand use of the Service.

3. How We Use Information

We use the information we collect to provide, maintain, protect, personalize, and improve CollegeHound.

We may use information to:

• Create and manage accounts.
• Provide the digital binder and related college planning tools.
• Organize grades, activities, testing, essays, colleges, scholarships, tasks, and deadlines.
• Support family sharing and account collaboration.
• Provide AI-powered features, including Scout, when you choose to use them.
• Generate personalized tasks, reminders, summaries, gap analyses, and planning guidance.
• Process subscriptions, trials, payments, renewals, cancellations, and promotional access.
• Send account-related messages, deadline reminders, product updates, support messages, and security notices.
• Respond to questions, support requests, and feedback.
• Improve the Service, user experience, reliability, and performance.
• Monitor for fraud, abuse, misuse, security risks, or technical problems.
• Enforce our Terms of Service and other policies.
• Comply with legal obligations.
• Send marketing communications where permitted by law and your communication preferences.

You may opt out of marketing emails at any time. Even if you opt out of marketing emails, we may still send transactional or service-related messages, such as account notices, billing notices, password messages, security alerts, or important updates about the Service.

4. AI-Powered Features and Scout

CollegeHound may include AI-powered features, including Scout, that use information in your account to provide personalized college planning support.

When you use AI-powered features, information you enter into CollegeHound may be processed to help generate:

• Suggested next steps.
• College planning summaries.
• Deadline reminders.
• Gap analyses.
• College list guidance.
• Scholarship organization support.
• Essay organization support.
• Responses to user questions.
• Other planning guidance based on the information available in your account.

AI-generated outputs may be incomplete, outdated, or inaccurate. You should review and verify important information before relying on it, especially college deadlines, scholarship requirements, application restrictions, financial aid requirements, costs, admissions policies, and testing requirements.

CollegeHound does not use student personal information to create advertising profiles. CollegeHound does not sell student personal information. CollegeHound does not use student data for targeted advertising.

CollegeHound may use trusted third-party service providers, including AI providers, to help operate AI-powered features. These providers are permitted to process information only as needed to provide services to CollegeHound and are not permitted to use student personal information for their own advertising purposes.

5. How We Share Information

We do not sell student personal information.

We may share information in the limited ways described below.

5.1 Within Family Accounts and Shared Accounts

CollegeHound allows users to create or participate in family accounts. Information entered into a shared family account may be visible to authorized users within that account, such as parents, guardians, students, or invited collaborators.

The account owner or authorized users are responsible for managing who has access to the account. If you invite someone into a family account, you authorize CollegeHound to share account information with that person according to the available account permissions.

5.2 With Service Providers

We may share information with trusted service providers who help us operate, maintain, secure, and improve the Service. These may include providers for:

• Cloud hosting and storage.
• Database management.
• Authentication and account access.
• Payment processing.
• Email delivery.
• Customer support.
• Analytics.
• Product improvement.
• Error monitoring and performance monitoring.
• Security and fraud prevention.
• AI-powered features.

These providers are authorized to use information only as necessary to provide services to CollegeHound and are not permitted to use student personal information for their own advertising purposes.

5.3 With Colleges, Counselors, Schools, or Third Parties at Your Direction

CollegeHound may allow you to organize information related to colleges, counselors, recommenders, coaches, scholarship providers, or schools. We do not share your account information with those parties unless you choose to share it, invite them, export it, send it, or otherwise direct us to make it available.

5.4 For Legal, Safety, and Security Reasons

We may disclose information if we believe it is reasonably necessary to:

• Comply with applicable law, legal process, court orders, subpoenas, or government requests.
• Protect the rights, property, safety, or security of CollegeHound, users, students, families, or the public.
• Detect, prevent, or address fraud, abuse, security incidents, or technical issues.
• Enforce our Terms of Service or other policies.
• Investigate possible violations of law or misuse of the Service.

5.5 Business Transfers

If CollegeHound is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, sale of assets, bankruptcy, or similar business transaction, user information may be transferred as part of that transaction. If that happens, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that user information continues to be handled consistent with this Privacy Policy or provide notice if practices materially change.

6. Student Privacy

CollegeHound is designed for high school students and their families. We recognize that student information can be sensitive, and we take student privacy seriously.

6.1 No Sale of Student Personal Information

CollegeHound does not sell student personal information.

6.2 No Targeted Advertising Based on Student Data

CollegeHound does not use student personal information for targeted advertising.

6.3 No Marketing Profiles Based on Student Data

CollegeHound does not build marketing profiles based on student personal information.

6.4 Family-Directed Use

CollegeHound is primarily designed for direct use by families. Parents and guardians may create or manage accounts for students and may use available account tools to review, update, or delete student information.

6.5 School or Institutional Use

If CollegeHound is used by a school, counselor, educational organization, or other institution in a way that involves student education records subject to specific student privacy laws, CollegeHound will handle such information according to applicable law and any written agreement that applies to that relationship.

CollegeHound does not claim that every use of the Service is subject to FERPA. FERPA obligations depend on how the Service is used and whether information is provided or maintained by or on behalf of an educational institution.

7. Children's Privacy

CollegeHound is intended for high school students and their families. The Service is not intended for children under 13.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without appropriate parental consent. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13 without appropriate consent, we will take reasonable steps to delete that information or obtain consent where required by law.

Parents or guardians who believe that a child under 13 has provided personal information to CollegeHound may contact us at [email protected].

Students under 18 should use CollegeHound only with permission and supervision from a parent or legal guardian.

8. Cookies and Similar Technologies

We may use cookies, pixels, local storage, and similar technologies to operate, secure, personalize, analyze, and improve the Service.

Cookies and similar technologies may be used for:

• Essential functions, such as login, security, session management, and account access.
• Preferences, such as remembering settings.
• Analytics, such as understanding how users interact with the Service.
• Performance monitoring, such as identifying errors or slow pages.
• Marketing measurement, such as understanding whether campaigns are effective.

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of the Service.

Where required by law, we will request consent before using certain non-essential cookies or tracking technologies.

9. Data Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect information from unauthorized access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure.

These safeguards may include, as appropriate:

• Encryption in transit.
• Access controls.
• Authentication measures.
• Monitoring and logging.
• Vendor review.
• Secure development practices.
• Security incident response procedures.

No method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security.

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for notifying us promptly if you believe your account has been compromised.

10. Data Retention

We retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide the Service, maintain accounts, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, enforce agreements, maintain security, and support legitimate business purposes.

In general:

• Account information is retained while the account is active.
• Student planning information is retained while the account is active or until deletion is requested, subject to technical, legal, security, and backup limitations.
• Payment and transaction records may be retained as required for tax, accounting, legal, and compliance purposes.
• Usage, log, analytics, and security information may be retained for a limited period as needed for operations, security, troubleshooting, and improvement.

When an account is deleted, we will take reasonable steps to delete or de-identify personal information, unless retention is required or permitted for legal, security, backup, fraud prevention, dispute resolution, or legitimate business purposes.

Deleted information may remain in backups or logs for a limited period before being removed according to our retention practices.

11. Your Privacy Choices and Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have certain rights regarding your personal information. These may include the right to:

• Access the personal information we have about you.
• Correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
• Delete certain personal information.
• Request a copy of certain information in a portable format.
• Opt out of marketing communications.
• Restrict or object to certain processing where applicable.
• Appeal certain privacy decisions where applicable.

To make a privacy request, contact us at [email protected].

We may need to verify your identity before completing a request. If the request involves a student account, we may also need to verify the authority of the parent, guardian, account owner, or authorized user making the request.

We will respond to privacy requests within the time required by applicable law.

12. Marketing Communications

If you sign up for CollegeHound, request information, participate in a promotion, or otherwise provide your contact information, we may send you emails about CollegeHound, product updates, college planning resources, promotions, or related information.

You can unsubscribe from marketing emails using the unsubscribe link in the email or by contacting us. We may still send non-marketing messages related to your account, subscription, security, billing, support, or use of the Service.

13. Third-Party Links and Resources

The Service may include links to third-party websites, resources, colleges, scholarship providers, testing agencies, financial aid resources, application platforms, articles, or other services.

CollegeHound does not control third-party websites or services and is not responsible for their content, privacy practices, accuracy, security, or availability. You should review the privacy policies and terms of any third-party services you use.

14. College, Scholarship, and Public Data Sources

CollegeHound may display, organize, summarize, or help users understand information about colleges, scholarships, deadlines, admissions, application requirements, costs, financial aid, and related topics.

This information may come from user-entered data, public sources, third-party sources, AI-generated outputs, or other available information. Although we aim to provide useful information, we cannot guarantee that such information is complete, accurate, current, or applicable to your situation.

You are responsible for confirming important information directly with official sources, such as colleges, scholarship providers, testing agencies, financial aid offices, application platforms, and school counselors.

15. International Users

CollegeHound is operated from the United States. If you access the Service from outside the United States, your information may be transferred to, stored in, or processed in the United States or other countries where our service providers operate.

Data protection laws in those locations may differ from the laws where you live. By using the Service or providing information to us, you acknowledge that your information may be processed in the United States and other locations as described in this Privacy Policy.

16. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the "Last Updated" date above.

If we make material changes, we may provide additional notice, such as by email, account notice, or a notice on the Service.

Your continued use of the Service after an updated Privacy Policy is posted means you acknowledge the updated Privacy Policy.

17. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact us:

CollegeHound Email: [email protected]

For student privacy questions, you may also contact us at [email protected] and include "Student Privacy" in the subject line.