Privacy Policy

1. Scope

This Privacy Policy applies to the Scholista website, marketing pages, consultation forms, family intake workflows, authenticated portal, 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, academic profile, testing details, budgets, preferences, personality notes, interview summaries, deadlines, and application status details.
• 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, 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 and usage information needed to secure and operate the service, such as session identifiers, browser or device context, and logs associated with security and abuse prevention.

3. 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.

4. 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 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.
• To maintain records, troubleshoot the platform, detect misuse, and comply with legal obligations.

5. 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, 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 and does not share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. Scholista does not knowingly sell or share personal information of minors.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

We may ask for information needed to verify the request, confirm parent or guardian authority, or protect account security. Submit privacy requests to admin@scholista.co. For general support, email admin@scholista.co.

11. 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 or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

12. 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.