Privacy Policy

What we collect

When you create an account, we collect your email address and password to identify you and let you sign in. If you choose to fill them in, and none of it is required, we also store details such as your grade level, graduation year, state, intended major, GPA, a rough household income range, and a few optional questions about your background and activities, so we can match you against scholarships and email you about relevant ones.

We also note which website or link first sent you here (for example, a search engine or a social media site), kept in your browser until you create an account, so we can learn which places are helping students find the site. We don't record what you searched for.

Links to the site inside our emails pass through our own address so we can count how many people click them. We keep only which email it was, which page it led to, and a scrambled code that can't be turned back into your email address.

We note when you last opened the site while signed in (at most twice a day). If you have not been back or clicked one of our emails for about five weeks, we send one email listing deadlines coming up, and not another for months. You can switch all email off in your profile or with the Unsubscribe link in any email.

If you use the recommendation letter page, you can type a recommender's name and, only if you want us to email them for you, their email address. We send a message only when you press send, from our address with your name on it, and their reply goes to your own email. The message tells them who wrote it and has a link that stops any further messages to their address, kept as a one-way scrambled code. We keep that a message was sent, not what it said. There are limits on how many a student can send.

If you delete your account, we ask why. You pick a reason and can add a note, and we email that to the person who runs the site once the account is gone. It does not include your email address or name, and you have to choose a reason ("I'd rather not say" is one) but nothing more.

If you turn on the calendar link in your profile, it is a secret address that shows your saved and started scholarship deadlines to anyone who has it. You can replace it at any time, which stops the old one working.

What we don't collect

We never ask for your Social Security number, bank account details, a government ID, or any payment information. We don't handle scholarship applications ourselves, so we never see the essays, transcripts, or other documents you submit directly to a sponsor.

Third-party services we use

• Supabase: handles account sign-in and stores your account data.
• Resend: delivers the confirmation and scholarship-alert emails we send you.
• Vercel: hosts this website and provides basic, cookie-free traffic statistics.
• Google: shows ads on some pages (Google AdSense) and measures how our own advertising performs (Google Ads). See the sections below.

Advertising

This site is supported by advertising. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies and similar technologies to serve ads based on a visitor's prior visits to this and other websites. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to our site and other sites on the internet. Ads appear only on our public pages (such as scholarship listings and guides), not on sign-in, account, or form pages.

We do not give advertisers your email address, profile answers, or any other account information. The information ad vendors collect comes from your browser as you view our pages, not from your account. You can learn how Google uses information from sites that use its services at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

Cookies

We set a cookie to keep you signed in. Google and its advertising partners also set cookies on pages that show ads, and Google sets a cookie when you arrive from one of our ads so we can tell whether the ad worked. We do not set any other advertising or tracking cookies ourselves.

We also count how people use the site, without knowing who they are. When you visit, your browser makes a random code that is kept only until you close the tab, and we log steps like looking at a scholarship, saving one or clicking through to apply, along with the page name and a general source such as “Google search”. There is no name, email address, IP address or account attached, and the code cannot recognise you on a later visit. We use the totals to see what is working.

If you save scholarships before you have an account, the list is kept in your browser's local storage on your own device. It is not sent to us unless you add your email or sign in, and then it is copied to your account.

Your choices

• You can opt out of personalized advertising from Google at adssettings.google.com, or opt out of many other vendors' personalized ads at aboutads.info.
• Where the law requires it (for example for visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland), you are asked for consent before ad cookies are used, and you can change that choice later through the privacy settings option shown on the page.
• Your browser lets you block or delete cookies. Blocking them may sign you out, but you can still browse every scholarship.

Age and students under 18

Scholarship Tracker is meant for high school and college students, and you must be at least 13 to create an account. If you are under 18, please get a parent or guardian's permission before creating an account. We don't knowingly collect information from children under 13; if you believe a child has given us information, email us and we will delete it. Google's policies limit personalized advertising to people it knows are under 18.

What we don't do

We don't sell your data. We don't share your email address, profile information, or income range with any scholarship sponsor, advertiser, or any other third party. The only information that reaches our service providers is what they need to run their part of the service (for example, Supabase stores your account, and Resend receives your email address to deliver messages to you).

Your privacy rights

You can ask us at any time for a copy of the information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Residents of California and other states with privacy laws have these rights as well, and we will honor them for everyone. We do not sell your personal information.

Deleting your data

Signed in, you can download your data and delete your account yourself from your profile page. You can also email us at vincentaydan@gmail.com.