Privacy Policy

Gradnaut is operated by ReechOut Inc., doing business as Gradnaut, a Delaware corporation ("Gradnaut", "we", "us", "our"). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share and protect personal information when you use gradnaut.com, the Gradnaut web application, our free assessment, our guides, and any related services and communications (together, the "Services").

By using the Services, you agree to this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Services.

1. Information we collect

Information you provide. When you use the Services, you may give us:

• Account details, such as your email address, age, country and, if you sign in with Google, the name and email Google shares with us. We do not store passwords.
• Academic and application information, such as your curriculum, grades, test scores, intended field of study, activities, achievements, experience, goals and the universities you are considering.
• Your writing, such as interview answers, essay drafts, statements, activities lists and CVs, including saved versions and a record of how they were written in the product.
• Documents you upload, such as CVs, certificates and transcripts. We extract relevant facts from them and delete the original file unless you choose to keep it attached.
• Details of people you name in the product, such as a recommender's or school contact's name, role and one contact detail (see section 6).
• Payment information, which is processed by our payment provider. We receive confirmation of payment and limited billing details, never your full card number.
• Communications, such as support requests, feedback and survey responses.

Information we generate. The Services produce content from what you provide, such as assessment results, your narrative, feedback on your writing, plans and reminders. We also keep an activity log for your account, including any time a member of our team views your workspace to assist you.

Information collected automatically. When you use the Services we collect technical and usage data, such as IP address, browser and device type, operating system, language, pages visited, features used and error reports, using cookies and similar technologies (see section 7). Usage events never contain the text of your essays, interview answers or uploaded documents.

Sensitive information. Please do not include sensitive personal information (such as health, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, immigration status, family finances or government ID numbers) unless you have decided to include it in your own application. The product does not ask for it. If you include it, you consent to our processing it to provide the Services, and you can remove it at any time. We use it only to provide the Services and never to infer characteristics about you.

2. How we use information

We use personal information to:

• provide, operate and personalize the Services, including running the assessment, generating your narrative, reviewing your writing and sending reminders;
• create and secure your account and process payments;
• obtain and record parental consent where required (section 5);
• communicate with you about your account, the Services, security and legal updates;
• send marketing communications where you have opted in or the law otherwise allows, which you can stop at any time;
• improve and develop the Services, including by reviewing a small sample of inputs and outputs to check quality, using de-identified data wherever possible;
• show support resources if something you write suggests a risk to your safety (nobody is notified and the content is not stored for this purpose);
• detect, prevent and address fraud, abuse and security issues; and
• comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service.

Where European or UK law applies, we rely on the performance of our contract with you, our legitimate interests, your consent, and compliance with legal obligations as the legal bases for this processing. We do not make automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.

3. Artificial intelligence

The Services use AI models provided by third parties to extract facts from documents, run the interview, draft your narrative from your own evidence, review your writing and suggest corrections. Your data is sent to these providers only to produce the output you request. Our agreements prohibit providers from using your data to train their models; providers may retain inputs and outputs for a limited period for safety and abuse monitoring under their standard terms. AI output can be inaccurate. The Services are designed not to write essays, statements or recommendation letters, and you should check every output against what you actually did.

4. How we share information

We do not sell personal information. We do not share it with universities, admissions offices or test providers, and we do not share your essays, interview answers, documents or assessment answers with advertisers. We share personal information only:

• with service providers that help us operate the Services, such as cloud hosting, AI model providers, email delivery, payment processing, analytics and customer support, under contracts that restrict their use of the information;
• with advertising and analytics partners on our public marketing pages only, to measure our marketing and show relevant ads. These tools are not used in the signed-in product for anyone under 18, and you can refuse them (section 7);
• with people you choose, when you export or share content from the Services;
• in a business transfer, such as a merger, acquisition, financing or sale of assets, subject to this Privacy Policy;
• for legal reasons, where required by law or legal process, to enforce our Terms, to detect fraud or security issues, or to protect the rights, property or safety of Gradnaut, our users or others; and
• with your consent.

5. Children

Many of our users are under 18, and we design the Services with that in mind. We ask for your age and country when you create an account.

If you are below the age at which your country allows you to consent to an online service yourself (13 in the United States, 16 or the national age in the European Union, 18 in India, and the applicable age elsewhere), we collect only your email, age, country and the technical data needed to run the site until a parent or guardian consents. We email the parent or guardian a notice describing what we collect, how we use and share it, and their rights, and we confirm their consent before activating the account. If consent is not received within 14 days, we delete the information. Any disclosure of a child's information to a third party that is not one of our service providers would require separate parental consent.

Parents and guardians can review the information we hold about their child, ask us to delete it, or withdraw consent at any time by contacting us at privacy@gradnaut.com. We do not require a child to share more information than is reasonably necessary to use the Services, and children cannot make their information public through the Services. We keep children's data only for the purposes and periods described in this policy and never indefinitely. We do not send marketing to, track email opens for, or use advertising tools with, users we know to be under 18. If we learn we have collected a child's information without the required consent, we delete it promptly.

6. Information about other people

If you add a recommender or school contact, we store only the name, role and one contact detail you enter, and we use them only to help you plan and track your own requests. Gradnaut never contacts these people and never uses their details for any purpose of our own. They are deleted with your account. Please add only people you have a genuine reason to ask, and let them know you have stored their details with us.

7. Cookies and similar technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies for essential purposes (keeping you signed in, security, saving your work), analytics (understanding how the Services are used) and, on our marketing pages only, advertising measurement. Where the law requires it, non-essential cookies are set only with your consent, and you can change your choices at any time through the cookie settings link on our website or in your browser. We treat a Global Privacy Control signal from your browser as an opt-out of targeted advertising and "sharing".

8. Data retention

We keep personal information for as long as your account is active and for a reasonable period afterwards so you can return for a later application cycle, and then delete or de-identify it. If you delete your account, we delete your information within 30 days and from backups shortly afterwards, except where we must keep it to comply with law (for example payment records), to resolve disputes or to enforce our agreements. AI processing logs are kept for a limited period for debugging and cost control. Assessment answers given without an account are deleted or anonymized after 90 days.

9. Your rights and choices

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, download, delete or restrict the use of your personal information, to object to certain processing, to withdraw consent, and to opt out of targeted advertising or the "sale" or "sharing" of personal information. You can exercise many of these from your account settings or by emailing privacy@gradnaut.com. We will verify your request, respond within the time the law requires, and never treat you differently for exercising your rights. You may appeal a decision on your request by replying to our response.

European Economic Area, United Kingdom and Switzerland. You also have the right to data portability and to lodge a complaint with your data protection authority. Where we transfer your data outside these regions, we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK Addendum; you can request a copy from us.

California. The California Consumer Privacy Act gives you the right to know, delete, correct, limit the use of sensitive personal information, and opt out of sale or sharing, without discrimination. In the past 12 months we have collected identifiers, education information, commercial information, internet activity, approximate location (from IP address), inferences and any sensitive information you choose to include in your writing, for the purposes in section 2, and disclosed them to the categories of recipients in section 4. We do not sell personal information and do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16. You can opt out of sharing through the "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" link on our website. You may designate an authorized agent to make requests on your behalf.

India. You have the right to access, correct and erase your personal data, to nominate someone to exercise your rights, and to raise a grievance with us and then with the Data Protection Board of India. Our Grievance Officer can be reached at privacy@gradnaut.com.

10. Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards to protect personal information, including encryption in transit and at rest, one-time-code and Google sign-in instead of stored passwords, access controls, and logging of staff access to student data. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a breach affects your personal information, we will notify you and any regulator as the law requires.

11. International transfers

We are based in the United States, and our service providers may process data in the United States and other countries. By using the Services, you understand that your information will be transferred to and processed in those countries, with appropriate safeguards where the law requires them.

12. Third-party links

The Services link to university websites, application portals and other third-party sites that have their own privacy practices. We never store your application portal passwords and never submit anything on a third-party site for you.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or through the Services before they take effect, and obtain new consent where the law requires it. The "Last updated" date shows the current version.

14. Contact us

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the data protection authority where you live.