Privacy Policy

1. Two kinds of information on SchoolPodium

SchoolPodium keeps two things separate, and this policy is about the second one. School facts — tuition, admissions dates, academics, and everything else displayed on a school’s profile — are publicly available information we’ve sourced and verified; they aren’t personal data about you. This policy covers the information you give us when you create an account and use the planner.

2. What we collect

• Account info — your name and email address, from signing in with Google. We don’t receive or store your Google password.
• Family & student info you enter — your student’s name and grade, the schools you’re considering, your family’s stated priorities, and any notes, checklist progress, planner events, aid-planning numbers, or visit impressions you add. This is information you type in; we don’t collect it from anywhere else.
• Commute info — a ZIP code and drop-off/pick-up times, if you use the commute widget, sent to Google’s Routes API to calculate drive times.
• Access codes — a redemption code if you unlock a paid tier this way.

3. How we use it

To run your account: show your saved schools, build your admissions timeline and checklists, calculate commute times, and (only if you use the Compare page’s “AI Analysis” feature) send the already-published facts of the schools you selected to compare — never your personal or family information — to Anthropic’s API to generate a plain-language explanation of the differences. We don’t use your data for advertising, and we don’t run ad trackers or third-party analytics on this site.

4. Who we share it with

We don’t sell your information, and we don’t share it with schools, advertisers, or data brokers. It’s processed by the infrastructure providers that make the product work: Google (sign-in, and the Routes API if you use commute times), Supabase (our database and authentication, with row-level security so families can only see their own data), Vercel (hosting), and Anthropic (only for the optional AI Analysis feature described above). We may disclose information if legally required to.

5. Children’s privacy

SchoolPodium accounts are for parents/guardians — you sign in with your own Google account, and any student information (like a name and grade) is entered by you, about your child, for your own planning use. We don’t knowingly collect information directly from children, and we don’t require or use a student’s own account.

6. Cookies

We use one type of cookie: a session cookie that keeps you signed in. It’s necessary for the account features to work and isn’t used for tracking or marketing.

7. Your data, your control

You can review or edit most of what you’ve entered directly in the app. To request a copy of your data, ask us to correct something, or delete your account and everything tied to it, email us — we’ll take care of it.

8. Changes

We may update this policy as the product evolves. We’ll update the date above when we do; continued use of the site after a change means you accept the update.

9. Contact

Questions about this policy, or a request about your data? Reach us at hello@schoolpodium.com.