DreamCollege.ai | DreamCollege.ai

Last modified: December 30, 2024

Introduction

DreamCollege.ai is an AI-powered college admissions advisor designed to help high school students navigate the complex process of college preparation and application process and enhance their chances of getting admission to their dream colleges. It provides personalized, high-quality, accessible college counseling guidance to support high school students at every stage of their college preparation and application journey.

At DreamCollege.ai, we value and respect your privacy. This Privacy Policy applies to the DreamCollege.ai Website operated by DreamCollege.ai, Inc., (“DreamCollege.ai,” “we”, “us”, or “our”) and describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you visit the website (https://dreamcollege.ai/) (our “Website”), as well as our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, disclosing that information, and the rights and choices you have in connection with that information, including how you can limit certain uses and sharing of your information. When we refer to “personal information,” we mean information about an identified individual or about an individual whom we could identify. Subject to applicable law, personal information generally does not include publicly available information or anonymized or de-identified data. In this Privacy Policy, “Services” refers to services described and provided on our Website, including but not limited to the personalized college recommendation service provided by Dreamcollege.ai, which uses big data analysis and machine learning to help students select universities that align with their interests and academic background. By using DreamCollege.ai, you agree to the terms outlined below.

We may collect your personal information, including but not limited to your name, contact details, academic background, interests, and university application preferences. This information may be collected through the following means:

On this Website.
In email, text, and other electronic messages between you and this Website.
Interact through our mobile application (if available).
When you interact with our advertising and applications on third-party websites and services, if those applications or advertising include links to this policy.

It does not apply to information collected by:

Our offline or through any other means, including on any other website operated by us or any third party (including our affiliates and subsidiaries); or
Any third party (including our affiliates and subsidiaries), including through any application or content (including advertising) that may link to or be accessible from or through the Website.

Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Website. By accessing or using this Website, you agree to this privacy policy. This policy may change from time to time (see Changes to Our Privacy Policy). Your continued use of this Website after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the policy periodically for updates.

Consent.

By using our Website, you hereby consent to our Privacy Policy and agree to its terms.

Children Under the Age of 13

Our Website is not intended for children under 13 years of age. No one under age 13 may provide any personal information to or on the Website. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are under 13, do not use or provide any information on this Website or through any of its features, register on the Website, make any purchases through the Website, use any of the interactive or public comment features of this Website,or provide any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, email address, or any screen name or user name you may use. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at [email protected].

California residents under 16 years of age may have additional rights regarding the collection and sale of their personal information. Please see Your State Privacy Rights for more information.

Information We Collect About You and How We Collect It

We collect several types of information from and about users of our Website, including information:

By which you may be personally identified;
That is about you but individually does not identify you;
About your internet connection, the equipment you use to access our Website, and usage details.

We collect this information:

Directly from you when you provide it to us.
Automatically as you navigate through the site.
From third parties, for example, our business partners.

Information You Provide to Us

The information we collect on or through our Website may include:

Information that you provide by filling in forms on our Website. This includes information provided at the time of registering to use our Website or submitted into your profile, such as email address, name, username and password, phone number, mailing address, images, date of birth, gender or gender identity, academic information (e.g., GPA, test scores, awards or honors, degrees earned, education and training history, college application preferences, educational background, and post-graduation plans, language proficiency, and other qualifications and certifications), skill and personality assessment data; extracurricular activities, or other information you provide about professionals’ roles in educational institutions and any other identifier by which you can be contacted online or offline (“Personal Information”).
Information you provide when you interact with our Website or Services, such as when you submit inquiries or request information, may include device ID, IP address (including geolocation data based on your IP address), browsing history on our Website, clickstream data, browser and operating system type, navigation paths, data/timestamps, cookie identifiers, or other information about your device characteristics and how you interact with our Website or Services.
Records and copies of your correspondence (including email addresses), if you contact us.
Your responses to surveys that we might ask you to complete for research purposes.
Details of transactions you carry out through our Website and of the fulfillment of your orders. You may be required to provide financial information before placing an order through our Website.
Social Media Information. We may receive information about you from social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter or Instagram) when you interact with us on those platforms or access our social media content. The information we may receive is governed by the privacy settings, policies, and/or procedures of the relevant social media platform, and we encourage you to review them.
Your search queries on the Website.
Inferences drawn from any other personal information we may collect to create a profile about preferences; characteristics; psychological trends; predispositions; behavior; attitudes, intelligence, abilities; or aptitudes.
We may also collect information at other points in our Website where you voluntarily provide it or where we state that Information is being collected.

Information We Collect Through Automatic Data Collection Technologies

As you navigate through and interact with our Website, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, including:

Details of your visits to our Website, including traffic data, location data, logs, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Website.
Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type.

We also may use these technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across third-party websites or other online services (behavioral tracking). You can opt out of behavioral tracking on this website and we would respond to web browser signals and we have other mechanisms that enable consumers to exercise choice about behavioral tracking.

The information we collect automatically may include personal information, or we may maintain it or associate it with personal information we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. It helps us to improve our Website and to deliver a better and more personalized service, including by enabling us to:

Estimate our audience size and usage patterns.
Store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize our Website according to your individual interests.
Speed up your searches.
Recognize you when you return to our Website.

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include:

Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Website.
Web Beacons. Pages of our Website and our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit the Company, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity).
Flash Cookies. Certain features of our Website may use local stored objects (or Flash cookies) to collect and store information about your preferences and navigation to, from, and on our Website. Flash cookies are not managed by the same browser settings as are used for browser cookies. For information about managing your privacy and security settings for Flash cookies, see Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.

Information Collected from Third-Party Companies

We may receive information about you from third-party companies whose products and services are used in conjunction with our Website, or whose products and services may be provided through our Website. For example, we may receive data from third parties regarding your registration information, academic background, interests, or personalized recommendations on other platforms, or information from other partner platforms (such as social media, academic databases, etc.). We may combine this information with other data we collect through the Website to optimize your college recommendations. We may also provide the option for you to register for our services through linking your account at a third party, such as Facebook or Google. If you register for our services by linking your account at a third party, you are consenting to have the information in those accounts (“Third-Party Account Information”) transmitted into your account with us, and that Third-Party Account Information is covered by this Privacy Policy.

The DreamCollege.ai may use third party analytics services. These services may record mouse clicks, page views, mouse movements and scrolling activity and are used by DreamCollege.ai to analyze trends and administer the DreamCollege.ai.

In addition, some content or applications, including advertisements, on the Website are served by third-parties, including advertisers, ad networks and servers, content providers, and application providers. These third parties may use cookies to collect information about you when you use our Website. The information they collect may be associated with your personal information or they may collect information, including personal information, about your online activities over time and across different websites and other online services. They may use this information to provide you with interest-based advertising or other targeted content. We do not control these third parties’ tracking technologies or how they may be used. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly.

How We Use Your Information

We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information:

To present our Website and its contents to you.
To provide you with the information, products, or services you request, including but not limited to helping you view, explore, and use our tools to create university recommendations, and offering personalized recommendations for college selection, majors, applications, and admissions strategies based on your needs and interests.
Identify you as a user in our system.
Improve the administration of our Website and quality of experience when you interact with our Website, including, but not limited to, by analyzing how you and other users find and interact with the Website.
Sent to AI models to generate recommendations after the sensitive and identifiable data is anonymized, including APIs provided by third-party services.
Carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collection.
Investigate and address conduct that may violate our Terms of Website.
Detect, prevent, and address fraud, violations of our terms or policies, and/or other harmful or unlawful activity.
To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it.
To provide you with notices about your account, including expiration and renewal notices.
To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collection.
To notify you about changes to our Website or any products or services we offer or provide through it.
To allow you to participate in interactive features on our Website, such as engaging in online Q&A or recommendation activities (if any).
In any other way we may describe when you provide the information.
For any other purpose with your consent.

For advertising purposes, we may use certain information about our customers to generate a “lookalike audience” or similar group of prospective customers through Facebook, Google, and other online advertising platforms. This allows us to target advertisements on their networks to potential customers who appear to share similar interests or demographics with our existing customers. We typically do this by uploading a list of email addresses, which are used solely for the purpose of generating the lookalike audience. The email addresses sent to these platforms are used for no other purpose. We do not have access to the identities of individuals within the lookalike audience, unless they choose to click on the ads.

For example, we may use aggregated, de-identified, or anonymized information about how you use DreamCollege.ai services (such as schools you're interested in, schools you apply to, and the participants you connect with on the DreamCollege.ai network) to improve our service offerings and website functionality. We may use this data at an aggregate level to analyze trends and enhance user experience. It should be noted that, unless required by applicable law, such aggregated, de-identified, or anonymized information is not considered personal information and is not subject to this Privacy Policy. Based on this, we believe that generating lookalike audiences poses little or no risk to customer privacy.

We may also use your information to contact you about our own and third-parties’ goods and services that may be of interest to you. If you do not want us to use your information in this way, please contact us by email. For more information, see Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.

Disclosure of Your Information

Our Disclosing: We may disclose personal information that we collect or you provide as described in this privacy policy:

To our subsidiaries and affiliates.
To contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business (e.g., cloud hosting services) and who are bound by contractual obligations to keep personal information confidential, meet industry data protection standards and use it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them.
To your parents or legal Guardians, If you are under the age of 18, we may disclose your information to your parents and/or legal guardians.
To a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our business or assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by us about our Website users is among the assets transferred.
To professional advisors. We may share some or all of your Information with professional advisors such as lawyers and accountants, where doing so is necessary to facilitate the services they render to us.
To third parties to market their products or services to you if you have consented to these disclosures. For more information, see Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.
Internal Analytics. We use personally identifiable information to maintain, develop, support, improve, and diagnose DreamCollege.ai products, services, and applications.
For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.
With your consent.

We may also disclose your personal information:

Legal Rights. Regardless of any choices you make regarding your Information (as described below), DreamCollege.ai may disclose Information if it believes in good faith that such disclosure is necessary: (a) in connection with any legal investigation; (b) to comply with relevant laws or to respond to subpoenas, warrants, or other legal process served on DreamCollege.ai; (c) to protect or defend the rights or property of DreamCollege.ai or users of the Website; and/or (d) to investigate or assist in preventing any violation or potential violation of the law, this Privacy Policy, or our Terms of Website.
If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of DreamCollege.ai, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Third-Party Service Providers

To use our Website, you may need to interact with certain third-party service providers. These service providers will process your information in accordance with their applicable terms of service and privacy policies. Please note that your interactions with these third-party service providers will be governed by their own terms, not our Privacy Policy.

Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information

We strive to provide you with choices regarding the personal information you provide to us. We have created mechanisms to provide you with the following control over your information:

Tracking Technologies and Advertising. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this site may then be inaccessible or not function properly.
Disclosure of Your Information for Third-Party Advertising. If you do not want us to share your personal information with unaffiliated or non-agent third parties for promotional purposes, you can send us an email with your detailed request to [email protected].
Promotional Offers from the Company. If you do not wish to have your email address used by the Company to promote our own or third parties’ products or services, you can send us an email stating your request to [email protected]. If we have sent you a promotional email, you may send us a return email asking to be omitted from future email distributions. This opt out does not apply to information provided to the Company as a result of a product purchase, warranty registration, product service experience or other transactions.
Targeted Advertising. If you do not want us to use information that we collect or that you provide to us to deliver advertisements according to our advertisers’ target-audience preferences, you can opt-out by sending us an email stating your request to [email protected]. For this opt-out to function, you must have your browser set to accept all browser cookies.

You may withdraw your consent for data collection and processing at any time by contacting us at [email protected]. Please note that such withdrawal will impact the functionality of most features on the Website, and we shall not be held responsible for any limitations or disruptions in services resulting from the withdrawal of consent.

We do not control third parties’ collection or use of your information to serve interest-based advertising. However these third parties may provide you with ways to choose not to have your information collected or used in this way. You can opt out of receiving targeted ads from members of the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”) on the NAI’s website.

Data Retention.

We may retain your Information as long as you continue to use the Website, have an account with us, or for as long as is necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy. We may continue to retain your Information even after you deactivate your account and/or cease to use the Website for legitimate educational purposes, such as to provide services to you or your educational institution, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce agreements. Depending on your place of residence, you may have the right to request the deletion of your personally identifiable information, subject to applicable legal limitations and exceptions. DreamCollege.ai will employ secure methods to delete or destroy your personally identifiable information.

If you have a DreamCollege.ai account, you can access and correct certain information by logging into your account (e.g., through my.dreamcollege.ai/profile).

You may also request that we close your DreamCollege.ai account. After the account is closed, you will not have access to any content in your account. If you request to close your DreamCollege.ai account, you will no longer have access to any content within your account. This means you will not be able to view information related to other account activities. After closing your account, you will also unsubscribe from all optional communication services. Closing your account does not equate to deleting your information. After account deletion, your personal information will be handled in accordance with applicable legal requirements, and we may retain certain information where necessary.

Accessing and Correcting Your Information

You can review and change your personal information by logging into the Website and visiting your account profile page.

You may also send us an email at [email protected] to request access to, correct or delete any personal information that you have provided to us. We cannot delete your personal information except by also deleting your user account. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect.

Users Outside of the United States.

DreamCollege.ai, its website, and its website servers are located and operated in the United States, requiring your information to be transferred from your location to the United States, which may not provide the same level of protection for your personally identifiable information as your home country. The information may be available to the United States government or its agencies under a lawful order in the United States. When you give information to DreamCollege.ai through this website for any reason or otherwise send us your personally identifiable information, including for any of the services we offer, you acknowledge a cross-border transfer of that information to the United States. If you do not agree to this international transfer of data, you shouldn’t use the website and the services it offers or otherwise send us your personally identifiable information. If you choose to revoke your consent to such transfer, and this is the lawful basis for the processing, we may cease processing your information. Depending on the service you’re using the website for, it may impact your ability to apply or be accepted to a U.S. college or university.

In certain countries, data protection and privacy laws provide individuals with certain rights, such as the right to access, correct, request deletion of, restrict or object to the processing of, or portability of your personally identifiable information. To exercise these rights, please email us at [email protected] to specify your request, and reference the applicable law. If you exercise or seek to exercise any of those rights, our obligations to respond are limited by and subject to applicable law.

Your State Privacy Rights

State consumer privacy laws may provide their residents with additional rights regarding our use of their personal information. If users are residents of California, they have the right to access the Personal Information we hold about them, to port it to a new service, and to ask that their Personal Information be corrected, updated, or erased.

Right to Request Access or Know Personal Information. If users are residents of California, they have the right to request and receive the categories and specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected about them, the categories of sources from which the Personal Information is collected, the business purpose for collecting the Personal Information, the categories of third parties with whom we share Personal Information, the length of time we intend to retain each category of Personal Information, and, if that is not possible, the criteria used to determine that information.
Right to Correct Inaccurate Personal Information. If users are residents of California, they have the right to request that we correct inaccurate Personal Information, taking into account the nature of the Personal Information and the purpose for which it was collected.
Right to Delete Personal Information. If users are residents of California, they have the right to delete their Personal Information under certain circumstances. We may refuse requests to delete for certain enumerated reasons, including that the Personal Information was not collected from them (e.g.obtained from other sources), as necessary to comply with applicable laws, or if deleting the data would prevent us from exercising or defending legal claims.
Right to Consent to Collection of, or Limit the Use of, Sensitive Personal Information. If users are residents of California, they may have the right to consent or opt out of processing of sensitive Personal Information, or to limit the use of sensitive Personal Information. However, considering that we do not collect or process users’ sensitive Personal Information without their consent, do not use sensitive Personal Information for any purpose other than to provide the products and services they request, and do not use it to infer characteristics about them. Therefore, we do not and are not required to provide the users with the right to limit the use of their sensitive Personal Information.
Right to Opt-Out of the Sharing of Personal Information. If users are residents of California, they have the right to opt out of the sharing of Personal Information for targeted advertising purposes. As a result, users have the right to reject all cookies except functional cookies (this option will opt them out of all sharing for targeted advertising purposes). If users visit us from a different device or browser, or clear cookies, they may need to re-select their preferences. Please note that even if the users opt out of the sharing of their Personal Information, their use of our Platform may still be tracked by us and/or our service providers.
Right to Request a Notice of the Disclosure of Personal Information. If users are residents of California, California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits them to request a notice regarding the disclosure of their Personal Information by us to partners for the partners’ direct marketing purposes. If users are California residents and would like a copy of this notice, please contact us by email at [email protected].

California’s “Shine the Light” law (Civil Code Section § 1798.83) permits users of our Website that are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request or you would like to exercise these rights above, please send an email to [email protected].

Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, and Utah each provide their state residents with rights to:

Confirm whether we process their personal information.
Access and delete certain personal information.
Data portability.
Opt-out of information processing for targeted advertising and sales.

Colorado, Connecticut, and Virginia also provide their state residents with rights to:

Correct inaccuracies in their personal information, taking into account the information’s nature processing purpose.
Opt-out of profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.

To exercise any of these rights please contact us at [email protected] to specify your request, and reference the applicable law. We may ask you to verify your identity, or ask for more information about your request. We will consider and act upon any above request in accordance with applicable law. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.

Data Security

At DreamCollege.ai, we take the security of your personal information seriously and have implemented a range of administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect your data. We adhere to industry best practices and standards to ensure that the personal data you provide is protected during transmission and after it has been received. All data transmissions are secured with encryption to prevent unauthorized access. Only authorized personnel are allowed to access your data. Whenever possible, data is anonymized to minimize risks.

We undergo annual third-party audits to proactively manage risks and ensure that our controls are effective. However, it is important to note that no data transmission over the internet, nor any website, mobile application, or system, can be 100% secure. As such, we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your personal information. Any transmission of personal data is therefore at your own risk.

The DreamCollege.ai contains links to other websites, including social networking websites, mobile applications, Internet locations, or generative artificial intelligence or similar technologies (“AI Technologies”; all, collectively “Third-Party Sites”). The fact that we link to a website or provide the ability to use an AI Technology through the DreamCollege.ai is not an endorsement or representation of an affiliation with that website. We have no control over and are not responsible for Third-Party Sites, their privacy practices, their content, or any goods or services available through the Third-Party Sites. Our Privacy Statement does not apply to Third-Party Sites, including to any information you provide to an AI Technology offered through our Website; any information you provide to a Third-Party Site or AI Technology is subject to that Third-Party Site’s privacy policy or privacy statement. You should carefully review the applicable privacy policies or privacy statements before using or engaging with any Third-Party Site or AI Technology on any of the DreamCollege.ai. Please be aware that AI Technology, and some other Third-Party Sites, may use the information you provide to it to improve its model, products, or services. Before providing any such information, you should consider whether the inclusion of that information could cause you or someone else embarrassment, distress, unease, guilt, or humiliation and whether you would be comfortable having that information used to improve the AI Technology’s or Third-Party Site’s models, productions, and services.

The DreamCollege.ai may include social network sharing widgets that may provide information to their associated social networks or third-parties about your interactions with our web pages that you visit, even if you do not click on or otherwise interact with the plug-in or widget. Information is transmitted from your browser and may include an identifier assigned by the social network or third party, information about your browser type, operating system, device type, IP address, and the URL of the web page where the widget appears. If you use social networking tools or visit social networking sites, we encourage you to read their privacy disclosures to learn what information they collect, use, and share.

To secure your personal data, we store all the information you provide on secure servers behind firewalls. We have implemented measures to prevent unauthorized access, alteration, and disclosure of your data. However, the safety of your information also depends on you. If you have been given or have selected a password to access certain areas of our website, you are responsible for keeping it confidential. We recommend that you do not share your password with others.

While we strive to protect your personal information, please remember that the internet is not a completely secure environment. We cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to our website, and any transmission of personal information is done at your own risk. We are also not responsible for any bypassing of privacy settings or security measures on the website.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the security of your personal data, please contact us at [email protected]. We are committed to assisting you and ensuring the safety of your information.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

It is our policy to post any changes we make to our privacy policy on this page with a notice that the privacy policy has been updated on the Website home page. If we make material changes to how we treat our users’ personal information, we will notify you by email to the primary email address specified in your account. The date the privacy policy was last revised is identified at the top of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date active and deliverable email address for you, and for periodically visiting our Website and this privacy policy to check for any changes.

Contact Information

To ask questions or comment about this privacy policy and our privacy practices, contact us at: Email: [email protected]