Privacy Policy

Overview

Austin Creative Labs LLC, operating as PathFinder U ("we," "us," or "our"), is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and safeguard your information when you use our college matching service at pathfinderu.org. We believe in transparency and want you to feel confident about how your data is handled. This policy applies to users in the United States.

Information We Collect

Quiz Responses: When you take our college matching assessment, we collect your answers to 20 questions about your interests, academic profile, campus preferences, global mindset, and learning style. This data is used solely to generate your personalized report.

Account Information: If you create an account, we collect your name and email address through our authentication provider. This allows you to save and access your reports across devices.

Payment Information: When you purchase a premium report, payment is processed securely through Stripe, Inc. We do not store your credit card number, CVV, or other sensitive payment details on our servers. We retain only a Stripe transaction reference for order management.

Usage Data: We collect standard web analytics data (page views, session duration, referring URLs) to understand how users interact with the Service and to improve it. This data is aggregated and does not identify individual users.

How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to generate your personalized college match report based on your quiz responses; to process payments and deliver premium content; to send transactional emails related to your account and purchases (via Resend); to improve our matching algorithms and service quality; and to respond to your support requests.

We do not use your data for targeted advertising, and we do not send marketing emails unless you have explicitly opted in.

Third-Party Service Providers

We share data with the following third-party service providers solely to operate the Service:

• Stripe, Inc. — payment processing. Your payment information is governed by Stripe's Privacy Policy.
• Resend, Inc. — transactional email delivery (account notifications, gift emails, purchase confirmations).

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with any other third parties, including universities, advertisers, or data brokers.

What We Will Never Do

We will never sell your personal information to universities, advertisers, data brokers, or any other third parties. We will never share your quiz responses with universities or admissions offices. We will never use your data for targeted advertising. We will never share individual student data with anyone without your explicit consent — sharing with counselors or parents is always initiated by you.

Data for Counselors and Schools

When a school counselor purchases bulk access codes, they may view aggregate data about their students' results (such as archetype distributions and completion rates). Counselors can only view individual student reports if the student explicitly shares their report through our sharing feature. We do not automatically share student data with counselors or schools.

Data Security

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your information, including encrypted data transmission (HTTPS/TLS), secure session-based authentication, and access controls. Payment processing is handled entirely by Stripe, a PCI-DSS Level 1 certified payment processor. No system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your information.

Data Retention

Your quiz responses and reports are retained for two years from the date of last account activity. If you request account deletion, we will remove your personal data within 30 days. Anonymized, aggregate data (such as overall quiz completion statistics) may be retained indefinitely for service improvement purposes.

Cookies

We use essential session cookies to maintain your login state. We do not use third-party tracking cookies or advertising cookies. Our analytics are privacy-focused and do not track individual users across websites.

Children's Privacy

PathFinder U is designed for high school students (typically ages 14–18) and their families. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are under 13, please use our service only with a parent or guardian's supervision and consent. If we learn that we have inadvertently collected personal information from a child under 13, we will delete it promptly.

Your Rights

You have the right to access the personal data we hold about you; request correction of inaccurate data; request deletion of your account and associated data; and request a copy of your data in a portable format. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at [email protected].

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by posting the updated policy on this page with a new "Last updated" date. We encourage you to review this page periodically.

Contact Us

If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us: