Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) are an agreement between you and Polaris Admit, LLC (“Polaris,” “we,” “us”), 1388 Haight St #1264, San Francisco, CA 94117, United States. They govern the Polaris iOS app and the polarisadmit.com website (together, the “Service”). By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms, our Privacy Policy, and our Community Guidelines, which are part of these Terms. These Terms also serve as the end-user license agreement for the app.

Two things worth knowing up front: Section 16 contains an arbitration agreement and class-action waiver that affect how disputes are resolved (you can opt out within 30 days), and Sections 12 through 15 limit our liability.

1. Eligibility

You must be 13 years of age or older to use Polaris. By creating an account you represent that you are 13 or older, that the information you provide at signup is accurate, and that you are not barred from using the Service under applicable law. If you are under 18, you also represent that a parent or guardian has reviewed these Terms with you and agrees to them on your behalf. Accounts belonging to users under 13 are not permitted; if we learn an account holder is under 13, we will suspend the account and delete its personal information. Do not misrepresent your age to create an account, and do not create a new account if we have suspended or banned you.

2. Your account

Polaris accounts are pseudonymous: you are identified to other users by a generated username, not your real name. You are responsible for activity on your account and for keeping your login credentials secure. One account per person. Don’t share your login, and don’t use Polaris to impersonate another person, organization, or Polaris itself.

3. License to use Polaris

We grant you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Service for personal, non-commercial purposes, subject to these Terms. You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, lease, reverse-engineer, or scrape any part of the Service, access it by automated means, or circumvent any rate limit, moderation system, or security measure. Polaris and its design, code, and branding belong to Polaris Admit, LLC and its licensors.

4. Your content

You own the content you create on Polaris: posts, comments, direct messages, photos, profile information, and academic stats you choose to share. So that we can run the Service, you grant Polaris a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, display, and distribute your content for the purposes of operating, developing, and promoting the Service. Two limits on that license:

• Direct messages are used only to deliver and moderate them, never for promotion.
• If you delete content or your account, the license ends for that content, except that content anonymized on account deletion (shown as “[deleted]” with no link to you) may remain so conversations stay coherent, and we may retain copies where the law requires.

You are solely responsible for the content you post. Posting it does not make it ours, and we don’t endorse it. Only post content you have the right to post.

5. Acceptable use and zero tolerance

Polaris has a zero-tolerance policy for objectionable content and abusive users. The full rules live in our Community Guidelines; in short, you may not use Polaris to:

• Share your own or anyone else’s personal contact information, or attempt to identify or locate another user in real life
• Harass, bully, threaten, or intimidate anyone
• Post hateful content targeting a person or group
• Post sexual content of any kind, including anything that sexualizes minors
• Threaten violence or promote self-harm
• Spam, scam, or post unsolicited advertising
• Cheat the admissions process: no sharing leaked exams or restricted materials, no buying or selling application essays, and no fabricated stats or credentials presented as real
• Impersonate any person, organization, or Polaris staff
• Do anything illegal

6. Moderation, reporting, and automated scanning

We may, at our sole discretion and without prior notice, remove or restrict any content, warn a user, or suspend or permanently ban any account that we believe violates these Terms or the Community Guidelines. We aim to review every report within 24 hours. You can report any post, comment, message, or profile in-app, and you can block any user. Reports are confidential: the person you report is never told who reported them. We moderate at our discretion; these Terms do not create an obligation to monitor, and we are not responsible for content we have not reviewed.

The Service uses automated systems to screen content, and by using Polaris you consent to that screening: a filter that checks all text, including direct messages, for personal information and abusive content before it is stored; automated review of every uploaded image before it becomes visible; and hash-matching of images against databases of known child sexual abuse material. Apparent child sexual abuse material is removed, preserved, and reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as federal law requires, and the account is terminated. Details are in our Privacy Policy.

7. AI features are informational

PolarisAI and My Chances are AI-assisted features, not admissions counseling and not a prediction or guarantee of any outcome.

• My Chances shows a qualitative reach / target / likelyestimate based on your stats and a college’s published data. It is informational only. It cannot and does not predict or guarantee admission, rejection, or waitlist at any school.
• PolarisAI generates responses with a third-party AI model and can be wrong. It is not a substitute for a school counselor, admissions professional, or other qualified advisor. Do not rely on it alone for significant decisions.
• Advice from other community members is personal opinion, not professional counseling.

8. Copyright and DMCA

We respect intellectual property and expect the same from users. We will terminate, in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of users who are repeat infringers.

If you believe content on Polaris infringes your copyright, send a notice to our Copyright Agent: Polaris Admit, LLC, Attn: Copyright Agent, 1388 Haight St #1264, San Francisco, CA 94117, team@polarisadmit.com. Our agent is also registered in the U.S. Copyright Office’s DMCA Designated Agent Directory, where full contact details, including a phone number, are on file. Your notice must include: your physical or electronic signature; identification of the copyrighted work; identification of the infringing material and where it appears on the Service; your contact information; a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the notice is accurate and you are the owner or authorized to act for the owner.

If your content was removed and you believe that was a mistake, you may send a counter-notice to the same address including your signature, identification of the removed material and its prior location, a statement under penalty of perjury of your good-faith belief the removal was a mistake or misidentification, your contact information, and your consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for your address (or the Northern District of California if outside the US).

9. Third-party services

The Service relies on third-party providers (described in our Privacy Policy) and may link to third-party sites such as scholarship pages. We are not responsible for third-party sites or services, and your use of them is governed by their own terms. You agree to comply with any applicable third-party terms when using the Service.

10. Subscriptions

Polaris is currently free. If we offer a paid subscription (“Polaris+”) in the future, it will be billed through your Apple account using In-App Purchase, the price and term will be shown before you buy, it will auto-renew until you cancel in your App Store subscription settings (cancelling is as easy as subscribing), and refunds are handled by Apple under Apple’s terms. We will update this section with full subscription terms before any paid feature launches, and daily limits on free features may change over time.

11. Feedback

If you send us ideas or suggestions, we may use them without restriction or compensation. That way we can build the things you ask for without a rights negotiation each time.

12. Termination and account deletion

You may stop using Polaris at any time and may delete your account under Settings → Delete Account. Deletion is immediate: your credentials, profile, stats, and chat history are deleted, and your posts, comments, and DMs are anonymized as described in the Privacy Policy. We may suspend or terminate your account if you violate these Terms or the Community Guidelines, misrepresent your age, or use the Service unlawfully or in a way that harms other users or the Service. Sections 4 (for anonymized content), 7, 8, and 11 through 18 survive termination.

13. Disclaimers

Polaris is provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure, or that any user-generated content, AI-generated content, college data, or admissions estimate is accurate or reliable. We are not responsible for the conduct of any user, online or offline. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain warranty disclaimers, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

14. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law: Polaris Admit, LLC and its members, officers, and agents will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or any loss of profits, data, goodwill, or opportunity (including admissions outcomes), arising from or relating to the Service, even if advised of the possibility. Our total liability for all claims arising from or relating to these Terms or the Service will not exceed the greater of one hundred US dollars ($100) or the amounts you paid us in the twelve months before the claim. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you; in that case our liability is limited to the fullest extent the law allows.

15. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Polaris Admit, LLC from claims, damages, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising from content you post, your use of the Service in violation of these Terms, or your violation of law or the rights of a third party. This section is not intended to, and does not, limit any rights you may have under applicable law as a consumer or as a minor.

16. Dispute resolution and arbitration

Most concerns can be solved fastest by emailing team@polarisadmit.com. For formal disputes, you and Polaris agree to the following.

Informal resolution first

Before filing an arbitration or court claim, the party with the dispute must send the other a written notice describing it, and both parties will try in good faith to resolve it within 60 days. Notices to us go to the email or mailing address in Section 18.

Binding individual arbitration

If informal resolution fails, any dispute arising from or relating to these Terms or the Service will be resolved by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, rather than in court. The arbitration will be conducted by a single arbitrator, in English, remotely or in the county where you live, and AAA’s consumer fee schedule applies (we pay all fees the rules assign to the company). The arbitrator decides all issues except that a court decides issues relating to the scope, enforceability, and arbitrability of this Section. If AAA is unavailable, the parties will select another established consumer arbitration provider; if arbitrations under this Section are filed on behalf of multiple claimants by the same or coordinated counsel, the parties agree the provider may administer them in sequential batches of up to 50, with each claimant receiving an individual proceeding and an individual award, and applicable statutes of limitations tolled while a claim awaits its batch.

What stays out of arbitration

• Either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court instead.
• Either party may seek injunctive relief in court for infringement or misuse of intellectual property.
• You may seek public injunctive relief in court where that right cannot be waived under California law.

Class-action and jury waiver

You and Polaris each waive the right to a jury trial and the right to participate in a class action, class arbitration, or other representative proceeding. Claims may be brought only in an individual capacity. If the class waiver is found unenforceable as to a particular claim, that claim (and only that claim) proceeds in court, and the rest of this Section still applies.

30-day opt-out

You can reject this arbitration agreement without penalty by emailing team@polarisadmit.com within 30 days of first accepting these Terms, with the subject “Arbitration opt-out” and your username. Opting out does not affect any other part of these Terms.

If we materially change this Section in the future, we will notify you and ask you to affirmatively accept the change; it will not apply to disputes that arose before the change.

17. Governing law and venue

These Terms and any dispute arising from them are governed by the laws of the State of California and applicable US federal law (including the Federal Arbitration Act for Section 16), without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Any claim that proceeds in court will be brought in the state or federal courts located in San Francisco County, California, and both parties consent to that venue, except where the law of your state of residence grants you non-waivable rights to a different forum or its own consumer protections, which these Terms do not take away. To the extent permitted by applicable law, any claim arising from these Terms or the Service must be brought within one (1) year after the claim arises, or it is permanently barred.

18. Apple App Store terms

Because the app is distributed through Apple’s App Store, the following terms apply and control over anything conflicting in these Terms:

• These Terms are an agreement between you and Polaris Admit, LLC only, not with Apple Inc. (“Apple”), and Polaris, not Apple, is solely responsible for the app and its content. These Terms do not provide usage rules that conflict with the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions.
• Your license to the app is limited to a non-transferable license to use it on Apple-branded products that you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules in the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions, except that the app may be accessed and used by other accounts associated with you via Family Sharing or volume purchasing.
• Polaris, not Apple, is solely responsible for providing any maintenance and support for the app. Apple has no obligation to furnish any maintenance and support services for it.
• Polaris, not Apple, is responsible for any product warranties, express or implied by law, to the extent not effectively disclaimed. If the app fails to conform to an applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price (if any) to you; to the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation whatsoever with respect to the app.
• Polaris, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claims by you or a third party relating to the app or your possession or use of it, including product liability claims, claims that the app fails to conform to legal or regulatory requirements, and claims under consumer protection, privacy, or similar legislation.
• In the event of any third-party claim that the app or your possession and use of it infringes that third party’s intellectual property rights, Polaris, not Apple, is solely responsible for the investigation, defense, settlement, and discharge of the claim.
• You represent and warrant that you are not located in a country subject to a US Government embargo or designated a “terrorist supporting” country, and that you are not on any US Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• Questions, complaints, and claims regarding the app should be directed to Polaris Admit, LLC, 1388 Haight St #1264, San Francisco, CA 94117, team@polarisadmit.com.
• Apple and Apple’s subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms, and upon your acceptance, Apple has the right (and is deemed to have accepted the right) to enforce these Terms against you as a third-party beneficiary.

19. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as Polaris evolves. For material changes, we will notify you in-app before they take effect and update the date at the top of this page; continuing to use Polaris after they take effect means you accept them. Material changes to Section 16 additionally require your affirmative acceptance as described there. If you do not agree to updated Terms, stop using the Service and delete your account.

20. General

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, it will be modified to the minimum extent necessary (or severed) and the rest remains in effect. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and the Community Guidelines are the entire agreement between you and Polaris about the Service. Our not enforcing a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, with notice to you. We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control. We may send notices to the email address on your account or in-app, and legal notices to us go to the address below.

21. Contact

Polaris Admit, LLC, 1388 Haight St #1264, San Francisco, CA 94117, United States. team@polarisadmit.com.