Privacy Policy

1. What We Collect

When you use Ascend Scholar, we collect the following categories of information:

• Account information: name, email address, grade, state
• Academic profile: GPA, extracurricular activities, interests
• Financial information: household income range (used only for scholarship matching)
• Personal narrative: story responses used to generate essay drafts
• Usage data: pages visited, features used, scholarship applications tracked
• Payment: processed through Apple App Store or Google Play — we do not store payment card data

2. How We Use Your Information

• Match you with scholarships you are eligible for
• Generate personalized essay drafts using AI
• Send deadline reminders for scholarships you are applying to
• Improve our matching algorithm and product features
• Comply with legal obligations

3. COPPA Compliance

Ascend Scholar complies with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without verifiable parental consent.

• If a user indicates they are under 13 during onboarding, account creation is paused and a consent request is sent to the parent or guardian's email address. The account remains locked until the parent or guardian confirms consent.
• Parents and guardians may review the personal information we have collected from their child, request deletion of that information, or refuse to allow further collection or use of their child's data at any time.
• We do not condition a child's participation in Ascend Scholar on disclosure of more personal information than is reasonably necessary to use the service.
• To exercise parental rights — including reviewing, correcting, or deleting your child's information — contact us at hello@ascendscholar.co.

If you believe we have inadvertently collected information from a child under 13 without consent, please contact us immediately at hello@ascendscholar.co.

4. No Data Selling — Ever

We will never sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties for their marketing purposes. Period. Your data is used exclusively to provide and improve the Ascend Scholar service.

5. Data Sharing

We share data only with:

• Supabase: Secure database and authentication provider
• Anthropic:AI processing — essay content and scholarship prompts are sent to Anthropic's Claude API for coaching assistance. No personally identifiable information (PII) is included in AI prompts.
• PostHog: Anonymized product analytics
• Sentry: Error monitoring — anonymized crash reports only
• Twilio: SMS notifications, if you choose to enable them
• Apple / Google: Payment processing when purchasing through the Apple App Store or Google Play Store

6. California Residents (CCPA)

If you are a California resident, you have the following rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA):

• The right to know what personal data we collect, use, or disclose
• The right to request deletion of your personal data
• The right to opt out of the sale of your personal data (we do not sell personal data)
• The right to non-discrimination for exercising your CCPA rights

To submit a CCPA request, email hello@ascendscholar.co.

7. Data Deletion

You have the right to request deletion of your account and all associated data at any time. To submit a deletion request, email hello@ascendscholar.co with the subject line "Data Deletion Request" and your registered email address. We will process your request within 30 days and confirm deletion via email.

8. Security

We protect your data using Supabase Row Level Security (RLS), encrypted connections (TLS), and JWT-based authentication. Access to your data is restricted to your authenticated session only.

9. Contact

Privacy questions or concerns: hello@ascendscholar.co