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Privacy Policy

Thank you for using the GradChampion.com website (hereinafter, the "Site"). Please read our Privacy Policy carefully before submitting your personal information to our site https://gradchampion.com.

We know that providing your personal information online involves a great amount of trust from your end. At Grad Champion we take this trust very seriously, and make it a high priority to ensure the security and confidentiality of your personal information. By accessing or using the Site in any manner, including, but not limited to, visiting, browsing, or contributing content or other materials to the Site, you agree to be bound by this Agreement. Do not access or use the Site if you are unwilling or unable to be bound by our Privacy Policy.

Information You Submit
We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information, like your name or email address, or other information you provide which could be reasonably linked to such identifying information by us. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We will only collect, use and share your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. This policy applies whether you use Grad Champion through https://GradChampion.com/ (the “Grad Champion Website”), or any of our other products or services that link to this Privacy Policy (collectively, the “Service”). We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses. This policy does not apply to websites or services or practices of companies that Grad Champion doesn’t own or control, such as third party services you might access through links or other features (e.g., social media links) on the Service. These other services have their own privacy policies, and we encourage you to review them before providing them with personal information.

Information We Collect
We collect information from you when you register on our site or fill out a form. When registering on our site, you may be asked to enter your: name, email address, mailing address or phone number. You may, however, visit our site anonymously. If you provide location information (like a ZIP/Postal code, street address, or even just a city) during the registration process or at any other time via your account settings, we will store that information and associate it with your account. We may also collect information such as year in school, anticipated enrollment date and institution, grade point average, standardized test scores and intended post-secondary major or program. We provide that information to scholarship review committees to help them assess your candidacy for scholarships (if applicable.) We use analytics tools to collect some information about your use of the Site. We use the information we get to improve the Site and to help improve your experience. In order to collect this information, cookies may be set on your browser or mobile device, or read if they are already there.

Cookies
Cookies are small data text files and can be stored on your computer’s hard drive (if your Web browser permits). Cookies may transmit information about you and your use of the Site, such as your browser type, search preferences, date and time of your use, among other things. We use cookies to keep you logged in while you use our Site, to better understand how you interact with our Services, and to monitor aggregate usage and web traffic information on our Services. You can disable some (but not all) Cookies in your device or browser settings, but doing so may affect your ability to use the Site.

If you use Grad Champion on different devices, we may link the information we collect from those different devices to help us provide a consistent Service across your different devices. If we do combine any automatically-collected information with personal information, we will treat the combined information as personal information, and it will be protected as per this Privacy policy.

The information we automatically collect includes:

  • Cookies and other similar technologies. We may use various technologies to collect and store information when you visit our Service, including, clear GIFS (also known as “web beacons”), “tags”, “scripts”, and “cookies”. We use both session and persistent cookies. A session cookie disappears after you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains after you close your browser (although it can be removed) and may be used by your browser to identify you on subsequent visits to the Service. We may also use, collect and store information locally on your device using mechanisms such as browser web storage (including HTML 5). Like many services, Grad Champion uses these technologies to tailor the Service for you, and to help the Service work better for you - for example, by remembering language preferences.
  • Device information: We collect device-specific information such as your operating system, hardware version, device settings, file and software names and types, battery and signal strength, and device identifiers. This helps us measure how the Service is performing, and improve Grad Champion for you on your particular device.
  • Log information: Like most online services, when you use our Service, we automatically collect and store certain information in our server logs. Examples:
  • Details of how you used our service, such as your activity on the Service, and the frequency and duration of your visits to the Grad Champion Website
  • IP addresses
  • Device event information such as crashes, system activity, hardware settings, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and referral URL

We do not combine this non-personal information with your personal information.

How We Use the Information Collected
Grad Champion does not sell or rent any of your, or your child's personal information to any third party for any purpose - including for advertising or marketing purposes. We use the information we collect from you to provide you with the best Grad Champion experience.

We may use the information we collect, including information which identifies or together with other information may identify (“Personal Information“) you in the following ways: 1) to improve our Site and your experience, for example through the optimization of layout for desktop and mobile devices pending on volume usages; 2) to provide technical support and assist in the development of Site components; 3) to ensure that the Site functions well and to develop new products and services; 4) to analyze how you use the Site.

Information Sharing
We do not share personal information with any third parties except in limited circumstances described in this Privacy Policy:

  • Other Users You Share and Communicate with on Grad Champion: No teacher, counselor, school leader, parent or student profiles are made available to the general public through our Service. If you are a teacher, counselor, school leader or parent, you may choose to share information or content through the Service with other Grad Champion teachers, counselors, school leaders or parents - for example, things like your account information or parents you are messaging through the Grad Champion Messaging Center, file upload or other collaboration features.
  • Service Providers: Targeted advertising is not permitted on Grad Champion. We do work with vendors, service providers, and other partners to help us provide the Service by performing tasks on our behalf. We may need to share or provide information (including personal information) to them to help them perform these business functions, for example sending emails on our behalf, database management services, database hosting, providing customer support software resources, and security. These service providers do not have the right to use your personal information we share with them beyond what is necessary to assist us. Additionally, these service providers must adhere to confidentiality and security obligations in a way that is consistent with this Privacy Policy.
  • Testimonials: We may post testimonials on our Service which may contain personal information such as the name, photo and/or video of the individual in the testimonial. We obtain the individual’s consent in advance to ensure we have permission to post this content publicly. To request removal of your personal information from our testimonials, please contact us at [email protected].
  • Analytics Services: We use analytics services, including mobile analytics software, to help us understand and improve how the Service is being used. These services may collect, store and use information in order to help us understand things like how often you use the Service, the events that occur within the application, usage, performance data, and from where the application was downloaded.
  • Aggregated Information and Non-Identifying Information: We may share aggregated, non-personally identifiable information publicly, including with users, partners or the press in order to, for example, demonstrate how Grad Champion is used, spot industry trends, or to provide marketing materials for Grad Champion. Any aggregated information shared this way will not contain any personal information.
  • Legal Requirements: We may disclose personal information if we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to comply with the law, such as complying with a subpoena or other legal process. We may need to disclose personal information where, in good faith, we think it is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of Grad Champion, our employees, our community, or others, or to prevent violations of our Terms of Use or other agreements. This includes, without limitation, exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection or responding to government requests.
  • Sharing with Grad Champion Companies: Over time, Grad Champion may grow and reorganize. We may share your personal information with affiliates such as a parent company, subsidiaries, joint venture partners or other companies that we control or that are under common control with us, in which case we will require those companies to agree to use your personal information in a way that is consistent with this Privacy Policy.
  • Change of Control: In the event that all or a portion of Grad Champion or its assets are acquired by or merged with a third party, personal information that we have collected from users would be one of the assets transferred to or acquired by that third party. This Privacy policy will continue to apply to your information, and any acquirer would only be able to handle your personal information as per this policy (unless you give consent to a new policy). We will provide you with notice of an acquisition within 30 days following the completion of such a transaction, by posting on our homepage, or by email to your email address that you provided to us.
  • In the unlikely event that Grad Champion goes out of business, or files for bankruptcy, we will protect your personal information, and will not sell it to any third party.
  • With your consent: Other than the cases above, we won’t disclose your personal information for any purpose unless you consent to it. Additionally, as discussed above, we will never sell or rent your personal information to advertisers or other third parties.

Parental Consent and Children's Privacy
We are in compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Children under 13 are unable to create their own Grad Champion user accounts.

In accordance with the “direct control” provisions of the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”), Grad Champion’s partner schools and districts can provide consent for the disclosure of non-personally identifiable student information under the “school official” and “educational purposes” provisions language

For partner schools and districts, parents can access Grad Champion through parent accounts we create for them that are linked to their students’ accounts. Parental access includes the ability to view all student conversations that occur within the student Message Center. Parents do not have the ability to view any information for other students using the platform.

Students are able to upload a profile image for their account or other file formats when communicating with linked counselors or parents through the Message Center feature of the platform. Partner schools and districts are responsible for directly obtaining any necessary consent from parents or through applicable FERPA and COPPA provisions language that permit schools or districts to act as agents for consent purposes.

In addition to the information listed above, we automatically collect some information from any use of our Service as set forth in the “Information We Collect” section. We use this information to provide the Service to the child, for security and safety purposes, as required by law, or to enforce our Terms. We will not require children to provide more personal information than is reasonably necessary in order to participate in the Service. If we discover that we have collected information from a child in a manner inconsistent with COPPA, we will take appropriate steps to either delete the information, or immediately seek parental consent for that collection.

We do not disclose any personal information about children to third parties, except to service providers necessary to provide the Service, as required by law, or to protect the security of the Service or other users. Information collected from students (including personal information and information collected automatically) is never used or disclosed for third party advertising or for any first- or third-party behaviorally targeted advertising, and children’s personal information is never sold or rented to anyone, including marketers or advertisers.

Receiving Communications & Opt Out Policy
oYou can always decline to share personal information with us, or even block all cookies. However, it’s important to remember that many of Grad Champion’s features may not be accessible, or may not function properly without allowing cookies.

If you registered on Grad Champion, provided an email or phone number to us, or otherwise opted-in to receive communications from us, we may send you messages and updates regarding your account, including privacy and security notices, updates regarding the Service, and information regarding products, features or services from Grad Champion. These communications may include, but are not limited to, social media updates, SMS/MMS messages, push notifications, email, and postal mail. If you have an account with us, we’ll also use your email address to contact you for customer service purposes, or for any legal matters that arise in the course of business. We may receive a confirmation when you open an email from us if your device supports it. We use this confirmation to help us understand which emails are most interesting and helpful.

Grad Champion may send push notifications to students that notify students of alerts they have on Grad Champion. These push notifications simply inform students to check their Grad Champion’ accounts and communicate no other information. If you are a student or a parent of a child and no longer want these communications to be sent, please either turn off the push notifications on your device, or contact us at [email protected]. You can always unsubscribe from receiving any of our email or other communications whenever you’d like by clicking the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any Grad Champion email, by turning off push notifications on your device, or sending an email to [email protected]. Please note that if you do not want to receive legal notices from us, such as this Privacy Policy, those legal notices will still govern your use of the Website, and you are responsible for reviewing those legal notices for changes.

Third Parties
Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third party services on our website. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.

Specifically, in the future you may be able to log into Grad Champion using Google credentials and password by clicking the Google button on the login window. By using Google Connect, you are allowing Grad Champion to access some personally identifiable information in your Google account pursuant to Google’s Terms of Service. Google Connect will pre-populate your Grad Champion account during the signup process with information from your Google account. Grad Champion will also receive your Google ID number during this process. We use all of this information strictly in accordance with this Policy.

No student profile is made available or visible to the public through Grad Champion. Students can’t view each other’s individual student profiles.

Parents will be able to view their own child’s profile, as well as any group communications between the child and linked staff members in the Message Center.

Translation
We may translate our Privacy Policy into other languages for your convenience. However, the English version governs your relationship with Grad Champion, and any inconsistencies among the different versions will be resolved in favor of the English version.

Accessing and Modifying Your Personal Information
Grad Champion aims to provide you with easy access to any personal information we have collected about you. If that information is incorrect, we give you easy ways to update it, or to delete it, unless we have to keep that information for legitimate business (e.g., we need at least an email address for your account) or legal purposes.

  • Accessing Your Information: To access, correct or request that we make no further use of personal information you may have provided to us via this website, please send an email to [email protected]. Upon request, Grad Champion will provide you with information about whether we hold any of your personal information, and, if you are a user of Grad Champion, you may request access to all your personal information we have on file by contacting us at privacy@Grad Champion.com. In some cases, we won’t be able to guarantee complete access due to legal restrictions - for example, you will not be allowed to access files that contain information about other users or information that is confidential to us. We may not be able to fulfill requests that are unreasonably repetitive, require disproportionate technical effort or would be extremely impractical.
  • Updating Your Information: You may update, correct, or delete some of your profile information or your preferences at any time by logging into your account on Grad Champion and accessing your account settings page. You may have to verify your identity before you can do that. You may also, at any time, update, correct, or delete certain personal information that you have provided us by contacting [email protected]. We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe. Please note that while your change may be reflected promptly in active content, users that have previously accessed that content may still have access to old copies cached on their device or may have copied and stored your content. In addition, we may retain a backup copy of the prior version for a limited period of time for legal purposes.

Security
Grad Champion has implemented technical, administrative and physical security measures designed to secure your information. We utilize third party providers to store and process your personal information, and these providers have also implemented robust physical, electronic, contractual and managerial steps to safeguard and secure your personal information. This includes transmission of data via HTTPS and restrictions on access to the data. The Internet, however, is not perfectly secure and we are not responsible for security breaches not reasonably within its control.

Outages, attacks, human error, system failure, unauthorized use or other factors may compromise the security of user information at any time. If we learn of a security breach, we will attempt to notify you electronically (subject to any applicable laws) so that you can take appropriate protective steps; for example, we may post a notice on our homepage (Grad Champion.com) or elsewhere on the Service, and may send email to you at the email address you have provided to us. Depending on where you live, you may have a legal right to receive notice of a security breach in writing.

Your Grad Champion account is protected by a password. You can help us protect against unauthorized access to your account by keeping your password secret at all times.

The security of your personal information is important to us. We work hard to protect our community, and we maintain administrative, technical and physical safeguards designed to protect against unauthorized use, disclosure of or access to personal information. In particular:

  • Our engineering team is dedicated to keeping your personal information secure
  • We periodically review our information collection, storage and processing practices, including physical security measures, to guard against unauthorized access to systems
  • We continually develop and implement features to keep your personal information safe - for example, when you enter any information anywhere on the Service, we encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL/TLS) by default
  • We ensure passwords are stored and transferred securely using encryption

Banking Information
Grad Champion does not store or use any banking information for students, parents, teachers, or counselors. We use a third-party service, Plaid, to connect to the bank of the scholarship provider. This connection is used only for reading account information and for live tracking of check and transaction status.

Liability Disclaimer
We may release personal information when we believe that doing so is appropriate to comply with a legitimate law, regulation, or legal request; to enforce or apply our policies; to initiate, render, bill, and collect for amounts owed to us; to protect our rights or property; to protect the safety of our users; to address fraud, security, or technical issues; or if we reasonably believe that an emergency involving immediate danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure of communications or justifies disclosure of records without delay.

Terms of Use
Please also visit our Terms of Use section establishing the use, disclaimers, and limitations of liability governing the use of our website.

Changes to this Privacy Policy
Grad Champion may update this Privacy Policy in the future. We will notify our members about material changes to this Privacy Policy by either sending a notice to the e-mail address you provided to us or by posting those changes on this page. By continuing to access or use the Site after those changes become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised Privacy Policy.

Data Sharing Agreement

1. DEFINITION, USE, AND TREATMENT OF DATA.
1.1 “Data” shall include, but is not limited to, the following: student data, employee data, metadata, user content, course content, materials, and any and all data and information that Institution (or any authorized end user(s)) uploads or enters through their use of the product. “Data” also specifically includes all personally identifiable information in education records, directory data, and other non-public information.

1.2 Institution owns and retains all rights, title and interest to, or has appropriate possessory rights in, Data. Grad Champion makes no claim of license, title or ownership to or in Data.

1.3 All Data accessed or used by the Grad Champion shall at all times be treated as confidential by Grad Champion and shall not be copied, used or disclosed by Grad Champion for any purpose not related to providing services to Institution. As outlined in more detail below, Grad Champion recognizes that personally identifiable information is protected against disclosure by Federal and State Statutes and Regulations, and Grad Champion agrees to comply with said restrictions.

2. PURPOSE, SCOPE, AND DURATION.
2.1 For Grad Champion to provide services to Institution it may become necessary for Institution to share certain Data related to Institution’s students, employees, business practices, and/or intellectual property.

2.2 The Parties acknowledge that Institution is subject to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. 12332(g)) (“FERPA”), which federal law and supporting regulations generally address certain obligations of an educational agency or institution that receives federal funds regarding disclosure of personally identifiable information in education records. The Parties agree that Grad Champion is a “school official” under FERPA and has a legitimate educational interest in personally identifiable information from education records because Grad Champion: (1) provides a service or function for which Institution would otherwise use employees; (2) is under the direct control of Institution with respect to the use and maintenance of education records; and (3) is subject to the requirements of FERPA governing the use and redisclosure of personally identifiable information from education records.

2.3 The parties expect and anticipate that Grad Champion may receive personally identifiable information in education records from Institution only as an incident of service or training that Grad Champion provides to Institution pursuant to this Agreement. Grad Champion shall be permitted to use any such personally identifiable information in education records as a function of performing its duties and obligations. Grad Champion represents that it shall not use or further disclose any personally identifiable information in education records other than as a function of performing its duties and obligations.

2.4 This agreement becomes effective immediately upon the date of execution and shall remain in effect during the time that Grad Champion provides services to Institution. Grad Champion agrees to use said Data solely for the purposes of providing services to Institution.

2.5 At the conclusion of this agreement Grad Champion agrees to destroy or transfer to Institution under the direction of Institution all Data relating to Institution upon request, its students, and its employees that Grad Champion may have in its possession or in the possession of any subcontractors or agents to which the Grad Champion may have transferred Data.

3. DATA COLLECTION. Grad Champion will only collect Data necessary to fulfill its duties as outlined in this Agreement.

4. DATA USE. Grad Champion will use Data strictly for the purpose of fulfilling its duties providing services, and improving services under this Agreement.

5. DATA DE-IDENTIFICATION. Grad Champion may use de-identified Data for product development, research, or other purposes. De-identified Data will have all direct and indirect personal identifiers removed. This includes, but is not limited to, name, identification numbers, dates of birth, demographic information, location information, and school identification. Further, Grad Champion agrees not to attempt to re-identify de- identified Data and not to transfer de-identified Data to any party authorized to receive such Data pursuant to this Agreement unless that party agrees not to attempt re- identification.

6. MARKETING AND ADVERTISING PROHIBITED. Grad Champion shall not use any Data to advertise or market to students, their parents, or District employees or officials.

7. ACCESS. Any Data held by Grad Champion will be made available to Institution immediately upon request by Institution.

8. SECURITY CONTROLS. Grad Champion shall take all reasonable measures to store and process Data. This includes implementing appropriate administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to secure Data from unauthorized access, disclosure and use.

9. NOTIFICATION OF DATA BREACH.
9.1 When Grad Champion becomes aware of a disclosure or security breach concerning any Data covered by this Agreement, Grad Champion shall immediately notify Institution and take immediate steps to limit and mitigate the damage of such security breach to the greatest extent possible.

9.2 The Parties agree that any breach of the privacy and/or confidentiality obligation set forth in the Agreement may, at Institution’s discretion, result in Institution immediately terminating this Agreement.

10. SEVERABILITY. The provisions of this Agreement are severable. If a court of competent jurisdiction determines that any portion of this Agreement is invalid or unenforceable, the court’s ruling will not affect the validity or enforceability of the other provisions of the Agreement.

11. ENTIRE AGREEMENT. This document states the entire agreement between Grad Champion and Institution with respect to its subject matter supersedes any previous and contemporaneous or oral representations, statements, negotiations, or agreements. This Agreement is governed by the laws of the State of Illinois. Venue shall lie in Cook County, Illinois, for any dispute arising out of this Agreement.

Contact Us
If you have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at [email protected].