Short version: no account, no tracking of you as an individual, and your grades never leave your device. Counting and advertising both happen only if you say yes, and the ads are never personalised.
Your grades stay on your phone
The calculator runs entirely in your browser. What you type is never sent anywhere.
Your entries are saved in your browser's local storage so that coming back later does not mean typing everything again. That storage is on your own device and nobody else can read it. The Clear button in the calculator deletes it.
If you use Copy link, your grades are put into a web address so you can send it to somebody. That happens only when you press the button, and only you decide who gets the link.
Cookies
One, and only if you agree to it. The first time you arrive, a box at the bottom of the screen asks whether the visit can be counted. Say no and nothing is set and you are not asked again. Say yes and Google Analytics sets a cookie that lets it tell a returning visit from a new one.
Say yes and Google AdSense may also set one, for the ads that pay for the site. Say no and neither is loaded at all. Your answer is remembered on your own device rather than in an account, and nothing else here sets a cookie.
Analytics
Google Analytics, and only after you have said yes. Before that it is loaded with Google's consent settings set to denied, which means no cookie, no identifier and nothing sent.
It is set up to count rather than to profile. Advertising storage, advertising data and ad personalisation are switched off and stay off whatever you answer, so the figures cannot be used to target you and are not shared with an ad network. IP addresses are anonymised.
What it is for is deciding what to write next: which pages people actually read, and which ones they leave. Much of the audience here is under eighteen, which is why the question is asked plainly, why refusing costs nothing, and why the advertising half is off rather than merely unused.
Advertising
The site is paid for by advertising, and the ads load only after you have agreed to them. They are always non-personalised: no profile is built, nothing follows you to other sites, and no interest category is attached to you.
That is not a preference we chose to be nice about. Most of the people reading this are under eighteen, and profiling a minor to target advertising is prohibited under Article 28 of the Digital Services Act. So it is set in the code rather than in a setting, and no answer to the banner can switch it on.
Your grades are never used for advertising, and they are never sent anywhere at all. The ads have no idea what you typed.
What is not here
No account system. No email signup. No newsletter. Nothing is sold, and your grades are shared with nobody, because they never leave your device.
The app
This policy covers the CollegeRoute app as well as the website. The app is a separate thing and the answers are not all the same.
There is no account and no sign up. Your grades, your shortlist and your reminders are stored on your own device and are deleted when you delete the app. They are never sent anywhere, and nobody, including us, can see them.
The course figures are downloaded once when you first open the app and then kept on the device, so the app works without a connection after that.
The app carries advertising, supplied by Google AdMob, and that is how it is paid for. AdMob collects a device identifier, a record of which ads were shown, and crash and performance reports. It does not receive your grades or anything else you enter.
The advertising is never personalised. The app does not ask permission to track you across other apps or websites and does not do so. This is deliberate: most of the people using this app are under eighteen, and advertising based on profiling children is not something we will do.
If you buy the option to remove the advertising, the purchase is handled by Apple or Google and confirmed through RevenueCat, which records that the purchase happened. We never see your card details.
Getting in touch
Questions about any of this go to hello@onoirstudio.com. The site is run by Onoir Studio Limited, an Irish registered company.