Privacy Policy

Account information. When you sign up we ask for your first name, your email address, and a password. Your password is stored only as a secure hash — we cannot see it. Your first name is used to personalize the product, including how your coach addresses you. We also record whether the tips and offers box was ticked when you signed up (see Emails we send you).

Your target schools. During onboarding you can tell us which universities you're aiming for, so we can tailor practice questions.

Content you create. The heart of AcceptMe is the work you do in it, and all of it is stored in your account so you can review it and track progress: the stories you build in your Story Bank, including drafts and the competencies they cover; voice coaching conversations — Story Bank coaching happens as a spoken conversation with an AI coach, and we ask for microphone access first (you can type instead if you prefer); your audio is processed in real time to run the conversation, and what we save to your account is a transcript, so your story drafts can be built from it; interview videos — in interview practice, your camera and microphone record timed video answers, which are uploaded to and stored with our video hosting provider so you can play them back on your review page; and your written answers and essays, along with the feedback notes generated on them.

Canadian Application Planner. If you make a plan, we keep what you put in it: the universities and programs you pick, who the plan is for, what you tick off, any tasks you add, any names you type, and the email addresses you give us for date-change emails or for sending the plan to someone. See The Canadian Application Planner below for the details.

Payment information. Payments are handled entirely by Stripe, our payment processor. Your card number never touches our servers. We keep a record of the payment — the amount, currency, Stripe transaction identifiers, and the access period it purchased — for support and accounting.

Technical information. Like almost every web service, our servers keep routine logs (such as IP address, browser type, and pages requested) that we use for security and to diagnose problems.

Product analytics and session replay. We use PostHog to understand how AcceptMe is used so we can improve it. PostHog records the pages you visit, the actions you take in the product (such as starting an interview or submitting an essay), and technical details like your browser type and approximate location derived from your IP address. If you are logged in, this activity is linked to your account so we can see how a real student's journey through the product goes. We also use PostHog's session replay, which reconstructs how a page looked and how you interacted with it — mouse movement, scrolling, clicks, and navigation — so we can find confusing screens and diagnose bugs. Session replay captures the rendered page, not your camera or microphone: your interview videos and voice coaching audio are never part of a recording. Passwords and payment fields are always masked. See Product analytics and session replay below for how to opt out.

Cookies. We use the cookies the site needs to function: a session cookie so you stay logged in (it also holds a plan you are still making, and the links of plans you have opened in that browser), a security (CSRF) cookie that protects forms, and a preference cookie that remembers whether to show you prices in Canadian or US dollars. PostHog also sets a cookie and uses browser storage to recognize the same browser across visits for the analytics described above. We do not use advertising cookies or advertising trackers.

About your account. Password resets when you ask for one, and notice before a change to our Terms or this policy takes effect.

Getting started. In the first two weeks after you sign up, we send a few short emails about using AcceptMe: starting your first story, saving a story your coach drafted, trying a mock interview, getting notes on an essay. Which ones you get depends on what you've already done in the product (we won't suggest your first story once you've saved it), and we never send more than one a day. They don't advertise our paid plan. Each one has a one-click link to stop them.

Tips and offers (optional). The signup form has a box, “Also send me application tips and offers from AcceptMe”. It is ticked when the form first appears; untick it before you create your account if you don't want them. You don't need them to use AcceptMe. If you sign up with it ticked, we keep a record of your consent — the exact wording shown, when, and on which page — and may email you tips for university applications and offers on AcceptMe's paid plan, for example once you've used your free tries. If you've linked an Application Planner plan to your account, the tips include a reminder six, three and one week before each deadline on it that AcceptMe can help with; we stop those once you're paying. Every one says who it's from and has a one-click unsubscribe, and you can also withdraw consent by writing to hello@acceptme.io. This box is separate from the Canadian Application Planner's tips box described below.

How they're sent. Resend, our email provider, sends these emails for us and may not use your address for anything else. Links in getting-started and tips emails carry a tag naming the email they came from, so our analytics can tell which emails actually help; that visit is recorded the same way as the rest of your use of the site (see Product analytics and session replay). If you unsubscribe, we keep a note that you did, and of the consent it withdrew, so we can show we stopped.

We are a small team, and watching how students actually use AcceptMe is the most honest way we have to make it better. PostHog gives us two things: product analytics — counts of which pages are visited and which features are used, tied to your account when you're logged in — and session replay, a reconstruction of how a page looked and how you moved through it. We look at replays to see where people get stuck, not to read what individuals write; but because a replay shows the page as you saw it, it can include text visible on screen, such as a story or essay draft you were editing. Password and payment fields are always masked and never appear in a recording, and your camera and microphone are never captured.

PostHog processes this data on our behalf as a service provider, on servers in the United States, and is not permitted to use it for its own purposes. Analytics data is kept for as long as we need it to understand product trends; session recordings are kept for a shorter period, currently up to 30 days, before being deleted automatically.

Opting out. If you'd rather not be included, email hello@acceptme.io and we will exclude your account from analytics and session replay and delete any recordings we hold of you. Opting out has no effect on your access to AcceptMe.

AcceptMe's feedback features are powered by AI services. To make them work, the relevant content is sent to service providers who process it on our behalf: essays and stories you submit for feedback are analyzed by an AI model (provided by Anthropic) that produces the coach's notes you see; voice coaching conversations are carried by ElevenLabs, which provides the real-time voice agent, and transcription services may be provided by Deepgram; interview videos are stored and streamed by Cloudflare Stream.

These providers act as our service providers: they process your content to deliver the feature and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes, such as advertising. AI-generated feedback is produced automatically and is advisory only — it is coaching to help you practice, not a judgment that affects your legal rights.

It lists every date and requirement for the Canadian universities and programs a student is applying to. A student can make a plan for themselves, or a parent or guardian can make one for their child. It needs no account and no password.

What a plan stores. Whether the plan is for you or your child; the province (or “outside Canada”) where the student finishes high school; the universities and programs you pick; whether to include scholarship deadlines and which view opens first; each item ticked off, with who ticked it and when; any tasks you add yourself; and any names you type, such as the student's first name. We don't ask for a birthdate, a school, marks, or a phone number.

Email addresses. If you ask for “Get an email when a date changes”, we keep your address and send you one email each time a university on your plan changes a date or a requirement, plus a first email with your link. If you send the plan to a parent, guardian, or your child, we store their address and email them the plan because you asked us to; please only send it to someone who expects it. To stop that feature being misused, we record when each plan was sent, with a scrambled (hashed) form of the recipient's address and of your IP address, and we limit how often a plan can be sent. The “Already have a plan?” page emails the links for an address only to that address, and never says whether it has a plan.

Tips for applications (optional). Next to the date-change sign-up there is a separate box, “Also send me tips for applications”. It is ticked when the form first appears; untick it before you sign up if you don't want tips. You don't need it to use the planner. If you sign up with it ticked, we keep a record of your consent — the exact wording shown, when, and on which page. Tips include a reminder six, three and one week before each deadline on your plan that you can practice or draft for, with a link to start; they don't go to anyone with a paid AcceptMe account. So that each reminder goes only once, we keep a coded (hashed) form of your address with the plan, never the address itself, and it is deleted with the plan. Every tips email says who it's from and has a one-click unsubscribe, and every planner email lets you stop date-change emails, tips, or both.

Who can see a plan. Each person on a plan gets their own link by email, and anyone who has the link can open the plan and tick things off, so please don't forward it or post it anywhere. Everyone on a plan sees the same plan: its universities and programs, what has been ticked off and by whom, the tasks added, and the names and email addresses of the other people on it. A person can be removed from a plan, and their link then stops working. We link a plan to your AcceptMe account when you create the account, log in, or are logged in, in a browser where you have opened that plan, and when you create an account or log in with the email address of the person who made the plan. If you sign up from a task on a plan (such as "Practice this interview"), we also keep which task it was and the plan link you opened it from, so your account can start you on that task and show what your plan asks for, even if someone else on the plan made an account first. Nobody else on the plan sees your AcceptMe account.

Analytics. PostHog records visits to the planner and actions in it (such as making a plan, ticking an item, or signing up for date-change emails) the same way as the rest of the site, as described in Product analytics and session replay. Unless you are logged in, this is linked to your browser, not to your name or email.

What we never do. We never sell planner data, and we never share which universities or programs you are applying to with universities, schools, advertisers, or anyone else. Planner emails are sent for us by Resend, our email provider, which may not use them for anything else.

How long we keep it, and deleting it. We delete a plan, with its ticks, tasks, names, and email addresses, once nobody has opened it for 24 months. You can stop any planner email at any time with the link at the bottom of it. To have a plan deleted sooner, email hello@acceptme.io from an address the plan was sent to, or include the plan's link, and we will delete the plan and everything on it.

Your account, stories, essays, videos, coaching transcripts, and practice history are kept while your account is active, so your progress is always there when you come back. Payment records are kept as long as accounting and tax law require, server logs are kept briefly for security and troubleshooting, and session recordings are deleted automatically after a short period (see Product analytics and session replay). Application plans are deleted once nobody has opened them for 24 months (see The Canadian Application Planner). The record of your email consent, and of any unsubscribe, is kept while your account exists.

If you ask us to delete your account, we will delete your personal information and content, except for records we are legally required to keep (such as payment records).

You can access and edit your stories, essays, and practice history directly in the product at any time. In addition, Canadian privacy law (PIPEDA and, in British Columbia, PIPA) gives you the right to ask us what personal information we hold about you, to correct it, and to withdraw your consent to our handling of it. If you are in the United States, your state's privacy law may give you similar rights of access and deletion. Wherever you are, the process is the same: email hello@acceptme.io and we will help — including deleting your account and its content, or an application plan, entirely if that's what you want. You can withdraw consent to tips and offers, or stop getting-started emails, at any time with the unsubscribe link in any of them.

If you are not satisfied with how we've handled a privacy concern, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia.