Privacy Policy

Last updated: June 2026. This policy explains what AppealMyAid collects, why, and your choices. It is written to be read, not to hide things. Questions: privacy@appealmyaid.com.

What we collect

• What you enter to draft an appeal: your name, school, academic year, the circumstance you describe, and the figures you provide (cost of attendance, aid offered, income, out-of-pocket costs). You choose what to type.
• The draft we generate: the appeal letter, the document checklist, and the verification result.
• Waitlist: if you submit it, your email and (optionally) your school.
• We do not require an account, and we do not run third-party advertising trackers.

How we use it

Only to produce your appeal and operate the service: drafting the letter, showing you the result, and (for the waitlist) telling you when your school is supported. We do not sell your personal information.

Who processes it

The drafting uses Google Gemini on Google Cloud (Vertex AI); your inputs are sent to that model to generate the letter. Data is stored in Google Cloud SQL in the United States. Google acts as our infrastructure processor. We don't share your data with anyone else except as required by law.

How we protect it

Connections use HTTPS/TLS. The database is not publicly reachable; access is through an IAM-authenticated proxy with credentials held in Google Secret Manager. We apply standard security headers and limit what we collect.

How long we keep it

Appeal records are retained while the service operates so you can return to your draft and we can improve quality. You can ask us to delete your data at any time (see below).

Your choices and rights

You can request access to, correction of, or deletion of your data by emailing privacy@appealmyaid.com or using our data deletion form. Depending on where you live (e.g., California, the EU/UK), you may have additional rights; we honor verified requests.

Children

AppealMyAid is intended for college applicants/students and their parents or guardians. It is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data.

Important limits

AppealMyAid prepares a draft for you to review and submit under your own name. We are not your school's financial-aid office, an attorney, or a financial advisor, and we never guarantee an aid increase. Your school's financial-aid office assists with appeals at no charge, and the FAFSA is free to file.

Changes

We will update this page if our practices change and revise the date above.

We use Microsoft Clarity, a third-party analytics tool, to see how visitors use our pages (session replays and heatmaps) so we can improve them. Clarity masks the text you type into forms by default, so it does not capture what you enter. It sets cookies and shares session data with Microsoft, retained about 30 days. You can opt out using any standard tracker-blocking browser extension.

We also use Google Analytics 4 to see, in aggregate, which pages and channels bring visitors. It sets cookies and sends usage data (pages viewed, general location, device) to Google; we never send it your name or the details you enter. You can opt out with any standard tracker-blocking extension or the Google Analytics opt-out add-on.