Privacy Policy

1. Scope

This Privacy Policy applies to the Scholista website and Scholista iPhone app, including marketing pages, consultation forms, family intake workflows, the authenticated portal and in-app Workspace, native planning and scholarship features, AI-assisted features, payments, support, and related communications.

2. Information We Collect

• Account information, such as name, email address, role, password credentials, security settings, and login history.
• Consultation and communications information, such as phone number, student name, graduation year, service interests, and messages you send us.
• Payment and transaction information needed to create service orders, reconcile payment status, support billing records, and respond to payment-related questions. Payment-card details themselves are collected by our payment processor rather than stored directly by Scholista.
• Student and family planning information, such as questionnaire responses, physical addresses, academic profile, testing details, budgets, preferences, personality notes, interview summaries, deadlines, and application status details.
• Scholarship profile and tracking information, such as graduation year, location, GPA, citizenship or residency status, education level, intended majors, financial-need and first-generation responses, source-specific eligibility answers, and saved, skipped, or user-reported applied statuses.
• Portal workspace information, such as uploaded screenshots, application field values, transcript and course data, extracted candidate data, and task notes.
• Limited sensitive information when needed for admissions-planning workflows, such as account login credentials for Scholista, family financial-planning ranges, student date of birth, demographic or residency context, health, disability, or accommodation context if voluntarily provided, and other application-relevant details. Do not submit Social Security numbers, external account passwords, tax credentials, bank credentials, payment-card numbers, or government-benefit credentials unless Scholista expressly requests a specific item through a controlled process.
• Technical, product-interaction, usage, and diagnostic information needed to secure, operate, and measure the service, such as session identifiers, browser or device context, consent choices, advertising attribution parameters, page activity, verified-signup events, purchase events, request failures, and operational error logs associated with reliability, security, and abuse prevention.

3. iPhone App and On-Device Storage

The iPhone app combines native features with Scholista pages displayed in an in-app browser. Account information and information entered in the in-app Workspace are transmitted to and processed by Scholista and its service providers as described elsewhere in this Policy. The in-app browser uses persistent cookies and website storage so an authenticated session can continue between app launches.

• Money offline cache. The app keeps a protected local cache of recently synced Money Passport fields, scholarship matches and eligibility explanations, workflow statuses, and plan information in the app's Application Support storage. This lets recent Money information remain available when a connection is interrupted. The cache is cleared when the app detects a sign-out, expired or invalid session, account change, or confirmed account deletion.
• Story Bank. Story titles, reusable answer text, edit dates, and an opaque account-scoping value are stored only on the device in the app's UserDefaults storage. Scholista does not upload Story Bank content. The app hides stored stories after sign-out and deletes the applicable local archive when it receives confirmation that the account was deleted.
• Native checklist. Checklist task titles, categories, and completion status are stored only on the device in UserDefaults. They are not uploaded or synchronized with the Scholista portal. The checklist remains until it is reset, the app receives a confirmed account-deletion response, or the app is removed.
• Local deadline notifications. If you choose to enable a scholarship reminder, the app asks iOS to store and present a local notification containing the scholarship title, a scholarship identifier, an in-app deep link, and the scheduled reminder time. Scholista does not use a remote push provider for these reminders. Depending on device settings, their text may be visible on a lock screen. The app removes scholarship reminders when it detects session invalidation or receives confirmation that the account was deleted.

The Money cache, Story Bank, native checklist, local notification records, persistent website data, and their contents may be included in device backups or device-to-device transfers controlled by Apple and the device owner. Removing the app removes its active local storage from the device, but backup copies remain subject to Apple's backup settings and retention. Scholista cannot directly inspect or delete those Apple-controlled copies.

The native Money feature also writes coarse event names, such as that the Money tab or Story Bank was opened, to the device's local diagnostic log. Those event names contain no profile fields, scholarship identifier, or URL, and the app does not transmit them to Scholista or an analytics provider.

4. Sources of Information

We collect information directly from parents, guardians, authorized students, and family representatives, and indirectly from information entered into the portal, interviews, screenshots, uploaded materials, and connected service providers used to operate the platform.

5. Why We Use Information

• To create and manage accounts and keep the portal secure.
• To provide admissions strategy, personalized recommendations, planning workflows, and support services.
• To compare saved scholarship profile answers with operator-curated criteria, explain matching results, display official-source links, and organize user-reported scholarship progress.
• To generate and review AI-assisted notes, summaries, field suggestions, interview outputs, and application support materials.
• To communicate with families about consultations, services, deadlines, support, and important updates.
• To process payments, reconcile orders, send receipts, review refund or duplicate-purchase requests, and respond to chargebacks or payment disputes.
• With your affirmative analytics choice, to measure website use, attribute verified signups and purchases to advertising, evaluate campaign performance, and avoid spending on ineffective advertising.
• To maintain records, troubleshoot the platform, detect misuse, and comply with legal obligations.

6. How We Share Information

We may share information with service providers acting on our behalf, including hosting, infrastructure, authentication, payment processing, AI-processing, storage, communications, analytics, advertising measurement, and mapping or directions providers. We may also disclose information to professional advisers, law enforcement, regulators, or transaction counterparties when legally required or reasonably necessary to protect Scholista, families, students, or others.

Scholista does not sell personal information. Scholista does not use student planning records, essays, grades, financial profiles, or uploaded materials for advertising personalization. Optional advertising measurement is described below and can be rejected.

Scholarship pages link to official providers, government agencies, or institutions. Opening an external link sends the ordinary browser or device request information needed to load that third-party site, which is governed by its own privacy policy. Scholista does not append scholarship profile or eligibility answers to those outbound links.

7. AI-Related Processing

When AI features are enabled, prompts, uploaded content, interview text, and related context may be transmitted to third-party AI service providers configured by Scholista in order to generate summaries, field suggestions, task lists, and decision-support content. AI outputs are subject to human and family review before they are used for client-facing advice, school lists, essays, applications, or financial planning.

8. Analytics and Optional Advertising Measurement

Scholista uses bounded first-party records, including linked account identifiers, purchase history, product interactions, and other usage data, to understand adoption and service funnels, maintain and improve the product, and troubleshoot operations. This first-party analytics use does not involve tracking a person across other companies' apps or websites.

When Google measurement is configured on the browser website, it is disabled by default. If you select “Allow analytics,” Scholista may load Google Analytics and Google Ads measurement tags. Google may then process browser or device information, IP-derived context, page activity, advertising identifiers, and attribution parameters such as a Google click identifier in order to measure site use and connect a verified signup or confirmed purchase to an advertisement. The Scholista iPhone app does not load these optional Google measurement tags.

Scholista sends only bounded conversion details: the fact that an email was verified or a purchase was confirmed, a non-personal transaction identifier, package name, currency, and order value. Scholista does not send Google an email address, student name, essay, grade, test score, college list, uploaded screenshot, questionnaire response, or family financial profile through this integration. Ad personalization remains disabled.

You may reject nonessential measurement or change your choice through “Analytics Choices” in the site footer. Rejecting measurement does not prevent account creation, checkout, or use of the workspace.

9. Children, Teens, and Family Data

Scholista is intended for parent-led or parent-authorized college planning. We expect parents or guardians to provide or supervise submission of student information. The service is not directed to children under 13 and is not intended for independent use by children under 13. If we learn that information from a child under 13 was submitted without proper parent or guardian involvement, we may restrict the account, request parent involvement, delete the information where appropriate, or take other steps required by law.

Parents or guardians may request review, correction, or deletion of student information by emailing admin@scholista.co. We may need to verify authority and identity before acting on a request.

10. Retention

We retain information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide the service, maintain account history, preserve backups, resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, comply with legal obligations, and keep business, tax, payment, and security records. Deletion requests may not remove information immediately from backups, payment processor records, legal holds, security logs, or records we are required or permitted to keep. We may retain de-identified or aggregated information longer.

11. Security

Scholista uses reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational measures designed to protect information. No system is perfectly secure, and families should avoid submitting information that is unnecessary for the service. Families should not upload screenshots or files that expose unrelated credentials, full payment-card numbers, Social Security numbers, or other unnecessary sensitive data.

12. Privacy Rights and Requests

Depending on applicable law, you may have rights to request access, correction, deletion, portability, or additional details about the information we hold. California residents may also have specific rights under California privacy law, including the right to know, delete, correct, limit certain sensitive information uses where applicable, and receive equal service regardless of exercising privacy rights.

Account holders can permanently delete their account and associated planning data, including their scholarship profile, eligibility answers, and workflow statuses, from the Security page after entering the current password and confirming the deletion. The shared operator-curated scholarship catalog is not personal account data and remains available to other users. We may ask for information needed to verify other requests, confirm parent or guardian authority, or protect account security. Submit privacy requests to admin@scholista.co. For general support, email admin@scholista.co.

13. California Notice at Collection

At or before collection, Scholista may collect identifiers, contact information, education information, family and preference information, account credentials, internet or device activity used for security and operations, uploaded content, payment transaction records, and inferences used to personalize admissions planning. We collect these categories to operate the service, provide recommendations and workflow support, communicate with families, improve operations, process payments and refunds, protect security, and meet legal obligations.

Where California privacy law applies, sensitive personal information is used only for service delivery, security, legal compliance, and other permitted purposes, not to infer unrelated characteristics. Scholista does not sell personal information. Optional Google advertising measurement is disabled unless the user affirmatively allows it and can be rejected through Analytics Choices.

14. Changes

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The revised version will be posted here with a new effective date. Material changes will be presented in a commercially reasonable manner before they apply where required by law.