Last updated: 2026-06-04
Draft — pending counsel review
This document describes our current data-handling practices in plain language so that students and parents can understand them today. Final legal language is being prepared with counsel. If anything below conflicts with the final policy, the final policy governs.
When you create an account we collect your name, email, and a password. As you build your profile we collect academic information (GPA, test scores, course rigor, intended majors), demographic information (date of birth, residency state, languages), activities, and college preferences. If you use our essay tools we store the essay text you submit and the AI reviews we generate.
ForecastEd uses OpenAI models (currently GPT-5.5 for essay review and GPT-5.6 for the chat advisor) to (a) review essay drafts and (b) power the Oaker AI chat advisor. When you click Analyze on an essay, the full essay text is sent to OpenAI for analysis. When you chat with Oaker, your messages and a summary of your profile (GPA, class year, test scores, intended major, activity types and roles, essay review scores, and your saved college list with its computed match scores) are sent to OpenAI so the advisor can respond in context. Your name, school name, home city, essay text, activity descriptions, and background information (race or ethnicity, family income, parent education) are notsent to the chat advisor. When you are signed in, the same profile summary is also sent to OpenAI to write the personal advice shown under “Your chances” on college pages.
Separately, if you ask for feedback on how you have described an activity, research project, leadership role, or honor, the title and the full description you wrote are sent to OpenAI to be scored.
OpenAI is contractually prevented from training its public models on data sent through our API. OpenAI retains API requests for up to 30 days for trust and safety review and then deletes them. We are working with counsel to confirm enhanced data-retention terms (Zero Data Retention) for our account.
AI reviews are an opinion based on writing patterns. They are not forensic AI-detection tools and do not predict what a school's detection system will say.
ForecastEd is intended for students aged 13 and older. If we learn that a user is under 13, we will close the account and delete the data. If you are under 18, we recommend reviewing this policy with a parent or guardian before submitting essays or other personal information to the AI features.
Your essays, chat messages, and profile are visible to you, to ForecastEd staff acting in a support or moderation role, and to the AI provider (OpenAI) for the purposes described above. We do not sell your information. We do not share it with colleges or third-party marketers.
We retain your account and essays for as long as your account is active. Advisor chat conversations are kept while you use them, but any conversation with no activity for 12 months is automatically deleted. You can also delete any conversation, or all of them, at any time from the advisor page. To request deletion of your account or specific data (including all essays and chat history), email [email protected]. We aim to fulfill verified deletion requests within 30 days.
We protect data in transit with TLS and at rest with industry-standard encryption. Passwords are stored hashed. Access by ForecastEd staff is limited and logged.
Contact us at [email protected].
See also: Terms of Service