Privacy Policy

Effective date: August 26, 2026

Admitfolio (“Admitfolio,” “we,” “us”) operates admitfolio.com, a marketplace where verified college students share their real admissions essays and prospective applicants browse them for inspiration. This policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have. We keep it in plain language on purpose.

If you have any questions, contact us at hello@admitfolio.com.

1. Information we collect

Information you give us

If you sign up for product updates: your email address.

If you sell essays: we collect your school email address (used to verify current or recent enrollment via a one-time code), a password, the schools you were admitted to, admission letters or other proof of admission, the essays you upload as PDF files, your listing details (essay prompts, pricing, and an optional note to our review team), and your display preference (always anonymous, anonymous until bought, or full name). After your first sale, Stripe collects the identity and bank information required to send your payouts. That sensitive information is submitted directly to Stripe and is not stored by Admitfolio.

If you buy essays: your email address and your order history. Payments are processed by Stripe, a third-party payment processor. Card numbers and full payment details go directly to Stripe and are never stored on our servers. Stripe’s handling of your information is described in Stripe’s own privacy policy.

If you contact us: whatever you choose to include in your message.

Information collected automatically

We use Vercel Web Analytics and Speed Insights to understand site traffic and performance. These tools are designed to be privacy-friendly: they do not use cookies and do not track visitors across websites. Data is aggregated (for example, page views and country-level location) and visitor identifiers are anonymized and short-lived.

Our hosting provider also keeps standard server logs (such as IP address, browser type, and pages requested) for security and debugging.

Purchased essays

Essays you buy are licensed to you personally. Every copy we display is watermarked with a unique, non-reversible license code. The code maps to your purchase in our private records, but does not print your email address or IP address in the essay. Each time an essay is opened, we record the date and time, your IP address, and your browser's user-agent string, linked to your purchase. We also store the IP address used at checkout.

We use this only to enforce the license, investigate redistribution or other misuse of a student's work, and resolve payment disputes. We do not use it for advertising or profiling, and we do not sell it. We keep access records only as long as reasonably needed to investigate misuse, resolve disputes, meet legal obligations, and protect the marketplace, then delete or anonymize them. Watermarks remain in any copy that has already been issued. If you believe a record is inaccurate, or you want to ask us to delete yours, contact us using the details below.

2. Cookies

We only use essential cookies: a session cookie that keeps you signed in to your seller account, and a similar cookie for our internal admin console. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

3. About the essays themselves

Admissions essays are personal by nature. They may describe your background, experiences, family, health, or other sensitive topics. Before you upload an essay, please understand:

• Every listing is reviewed before it goes live. Our team and our automated review provider, Anthropic, can process your essay, admission proof, listing details, and note to help check authenticity, safety, and quality. A human makes publication decisions.
• You control how you appear to buyers: fully anonymous, anonymous until someone buys (your first name is then shown to that buyer only, never on the public listing), or your full name on the listing. We do not reveal more than the option you choose.
• Buyers who purchase your essay will be able to read its full contents, including any personal details you left in the text. We recommend removing anything you would not want a stranger to read.

4. How we use your information

We use the information we collect to:

• Verify that sellers are current or recent college students
• Create and secure your account (passwords are stored hashed, never in plain text)
• Review, publish, and manage essay listings, including automated pre-screening by Anthropic
• Process purchases and pay sellers their earnings
• Send transactional emails such as verification codes and account notices (via Resend, our email provider)
• Send requested product updates
• Understand aggregate site usage and keep the site fast and secure
• Comply with legal obligations

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for their own advertising.

5. Who we share information with

We share information only with the service providers that make the site run:

• Supabase hosts our database and stores uploaded essay PDFs in a private storage bucket that is not publicly accessible
• Vercel hosts the website and provides the cookieless analytics described above
• Resend delivers our transactional emails, such as verification codes
• Stripe processes buyer payments and verifies and pays eligible Sellers
• Anthropic processes submitted essays, admission proofs, and listing information to provide automated authenticity, safety, and quality checks before our human review

These providers process data on our behalf under their own security and privacy commitments. Beyond that, we only disclose personal information if required by law, to protect the rights and safety of our users or others, or as part of a business transaction such as a merger or acquisition (in which case this policy would continue to apply until updated).

6. Data retention

We keep your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the service. If you delete your account or ask us to delete your data, we remove your personal information and uploaded essays within 30 days, except where we need to keep limited records for legal, tax, or fraud-prevention purposes. Email addresses collected for optional product updates are kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them.

7. Security

Essay files live in a private storage bucket, passwords are hashed, seller verification uses one-time codes that expire after use, and access to listings before publication is limited to our review team. No online service can promise perfect security, but we design with data protection in mind and limit what we collect in the first place.

8. Your choices and rights

You can:

• Access or update your account information by signing in to your seller dashboard
• Unlist an essay at any time from your dashboard
• Delete your account and data by contacting us at the email above
• Unsubscribe from optional product emails using the link in any email we send

Depending on where you live, you may have additional legal rights over your personal information, such as the right to know what we hold about you, to correct it, or to request deletion. To exercise any of these, email us and we will respond within the timeframe required by applicable law. We will never treat you differently for exercising a privacy right.

9. Children

Admitfolio is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. Selling on Admitfolio requires current or recent college enrollment. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

10. Changes to this policy

If we make meaningful changes to this policy, we will update the effective date above and, for significant changes, notify account holders by email. Continued use of the site after changes take effect means you accept the updated policy.

11. Contact

Questions, concerns, or requests: hello@admitfolio.com.