Privacy
Last updated October 12, 2026
What we store
- Your Google account’s email, name and profile picture, so you can sign in and your household can recognise you.
- The student profile your household enters: name, graduation year, GPA, test scores, intended majors, home ZIP code, home state, and, if you choose to provide it, a household income band.
- Everything you create in the app: saved searches, shortlist, notes, and application tracker entries.
Why
Every item above exists to score colleges for your student: odds use test scores, distance uses the ZIP code, and net price uses the income band. The income band is optional; without it the app uses each college’s published average net price.
Who can see it
- Members of your household, whom you invite yourself.
- The people who run U Shortlist, for support and to keep the service working.
- Nobody else. We do not sell or share personal information, show advertising, pass leads to colleges, or build profiles for marketing.
Services we rely on
- Google, for sign-in. Google tells us your email, name and picture; we never see your password.
- Netlify, which hosts the site and stores the data above in the United States.
- Anthropic, whose Claude models power the optional “Research with AI” and “Curate a list” features. The school name and the intended majors are sent; your name, scores and income are not.
- The U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard for college statistics, and Wikimedia Commons for campus photos. Neither receives anything about you.
Cookies
One cookie keeps you signed in for 90 days and one remembers that you are signed in so the page can show your name. There are no analytics or advertising cookies.
Deleting your data
Email christopher.guess@gmail.com from the account you signed in with and your household’s data will be removed within a week.
Students under 18
U Shortlist is built for families to use together. A parent or guardian should create the household and invite the student.