Privacy Policy

Overview

ScholarshipFinder (“we,” “us,” or “our”) operates NationalScholarshipFinder.com. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and protect information from users of our scholarship matching service.

Children's Privacy (COPPA Compliance)

We take children's privacy seriously and comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

• We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Our service is designed for high school juniors and seniors (typically ages 16-18) and their parents or guardians.
• If a user identifies themselves as under 13 during our onboarding process, we immediately stop the conversation and do not collect or store any personal information. We direct them to have a parent or guardian complete the profile on their behalf.
• Parents and guardians may create profiles on behalf of their children of any age. The parent or guardian is the account holder and controls all information.
• If you believe we have inadvertently collected information from a child under 13, please contact us immediately at privacy@nationalscholarshipfinder.com and we will promptly delete that information.

Information We Collect

We collect the following types of information:

• Account information: Email address, used for authentication and sending scholarship match digests.
• Student profile information: Name, graduation year, school name, GPA, test scores, location (state/city), field of interest, extracurricular activities, and optionally: ethnicity, gender, citizenship status, and financial need. This information is provided voluntarily and is used solely to match students with relevant scholarships.
• Conversation data: The chat conversation during the onboarding interview is stored to allow users to resume an incomplete session.

How We Use Your Information

• To match students with scholarships they are eligible for
• To send weekly email digests of scholarship opportunities
• To authenticate users via magic link emails
• To improve our scholarship matching algorithms

We do not sell, rent, or share personal information with third parties for marketing purposes.

Data Storage and Security

Your information is stored securely using Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure, including encrypted databases and secure access controls. We use passwordless authentication (magic links) to eliminate password-related security risks.

Your Rights

• You can view all information we have about you from your dashboard.
• You can update your student profile at any time from the settings page.
• You can unsubscribe from email digests at any time.
• You can request deletion of your account and all associated data by emailing privacy@nationalscholarshipfinder.com.

Third-Party Services

• Anthropic (Claude AI):We use Claude AI to power the conversational onboarding experience. Conversation data is sent to Anthropic's API for processing but is not used by Anthropic for training purposes.
• Google Analytics: We use Google Analytics to understand how visitors use our site. This collects anonymous usage data.
• Amazon SES: We use Amazon Simple Email Service to send magic link emails and scholarship digests.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, your data, or our COPPA compliance, contact us at privacy@nationalscholarshipfinder.com.