Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

PathToCampus may collect information you provide directly, which is necessary to offer personalized career and college guidance. This includes:

• Personal Information: Name, email address, and phone number.

• Academic Information: Current grade level, academic interests, course preferences, and prospective college criteria submitted during counseling or profile setup.

• Communication Data: Message details, institute enquiries, comments, and any content submitted through contact forms, blog features, or administrative areas.

We may also collect technical and usage information, such as pages visited, blog views, likes, comment activity, approximate device and browser information, IP address, timestamps, and interactions with institute listings or website features.

2. How We Use Information

We process your information to deliver our core service: streamlining the college selection process. Specifically, we use your data to:

• Provide personalized career counseling, university recommendations, and educational guidance.

• Respond to your enquiries and facilitate connections with prospective colleges or universities.

• Display and manage blog interactions, and operate contact and comment features.

• Support authentication and admin access for student and parent dashboards.

• Maintain accurate institute and course content, and improve the overall website experience.

• Analyze aggregated or limited usage data to understand which pages, institutes, and features are most useful, to troubleshoot errors, and to improve platform performance.

3. Consent and Minors (Students Under 18)

Because our primary audience includes 12th-grade students navigating their higher education choices, we recognize that some users may be under the age of 18. We process the data of minors strictly for educational guidance and require verifiable parental or guardian consent where mandated by law. Parents and guardians have the right to review, manage, or request the deletion of their child's data at any time.

4. Authentication and Account Data

If you use a student or parent account, we process login credentials and account-related information to authenticate access and protect restricted dashboard features. Passwords are stored in a protected, encrypted format, and access is limited to authorized users. You are responsible for keeping account credentials secure and notifying us immediately if you suspect unauthorized access.

5. Cookies and Tracking

PathToCampus uses cookies, session storage, and similar technologies to keep the website functional, support authentication, remember your basic preferences, measure traffic, and improve platform performance. Analytics or embedded third-party tools may set their own cookies or collect limited usage information according to their own privacy practices. You can control cookies through your browser settings, but disabling them may affect some website features, such as your saved college preferences.

6. Third-Party Services and Data Sharing

We do not sell your personal information. We may rely on third-party providers for hosting, database storage, secure communication, analytics, and security. These providers process information only as needed to deliver the website securely.

We may also share your information in the following circumstances:

• With Educational Institutions: If you explicitly request more information about a specific college or university, we will share your relevant academic and contact details with them to facilitate your enquiry.

• Public Features: If you submit public blog comments or other public-facing content, that content may be visible to other users along with your display name.

• Legal & Security: We may disclose information when required to comply with legal obligations, protect the website, or investigate misuse of the platform.

When you follow links to external institute websites, map services, social networks, or partner sites, their respective privacy policies apply. PathToCampus is not responsible for how external websites collect or use your data.

7. Data Protection and Security

We implement robust administrative, technical, and organizational measures to protect your personal and academic information against unauthorized access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure. While we strive to protect your data, no internet transmission is completely secure. We advise users to avoid submitting highly sensitive financial or government identity information through general contact forms unless explicitly requested through a secure, designated process.

8. Data Retention

We keep personal information only for as long as necessary to provide our career counseling services, maintain academic records as requested by you, support platform security, resolve disputes, and comply with legal duties. When the information is no longer required for these purposes, we will securely delete or anonymize it.

9. Your Rights

We do not sell your personal information. We may rely on third-party providers for hosting, database storage, secure communication, analytics, and security. These providers process information only as needed to deliver the website securely.

You maintain full control over your personal data. Depending on applicable data protection laws, you have the right to:

• Access the personal and academic information we hold about you.

• Correct any inaccurate or incomplete information.

• Delete your data or request the erasure of your profile once your college selection process is complete.

• Withdraw Consent for specific data processing activities, including marketing communications or data sharing with specific universities.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the email below. We may need to verify your identity before completing certain requests to ensure your data remains secure.

10. Policy Updates

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically as our features, service providers, legal obligations, or data practices evolve. The updated date at the top of this page will indicate when the policy was last revised. Continued use of PathToCampus after an update signifies your acknowledgment of the revised Privacy Policy.