Terms of Service

THESE TERMS CONTAIN A BINDING INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATION PROVISION AND A CLASS ACTION WAIVER (SECTION 14). THEY AFFECT HOW DISPUTES BETWEEN YOU AND US ARE RESOLVED. PLEASE READ THEM CAREFULLY. YOU MAY OPT OUT OF ARBITRATION WITHIN 30 DAYS AS DESCRIBED IN SECTION 14.7.

1. Agreement to these Terms

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a legal agreement between you (“you,” “your,” or “user”) and Nebelo LLC (“we,” “us,” or “our”) governing your use of College Essay Panel, including our website at collegeessaypanel.com, our application, and related services (collectively, the “Service”).

By checking the acceptance box, creating an account, submitting an essay, or otherwise using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated by reference. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. Eligibility; Use by Minors

Account holders must be 18 or older. Only a person who is at least 18 years old and legally able to enter into this agreement may create an account, make purchases, or accept these Terms. By creating an account, you represent and warrant that you are 18 or older. The Service is intended for users located in the United States.

Students ages 13-17. A student who is at least 13 but under 18 may use the Service only through an account created and controlled by the student's parent or legal guardian. If you permit a student under 18 to use your account, you represent and warrant that:

• You are that student's parent or legal guardian;
• You have reviewed and agree to these Terms and the Privacy Policy on your own behalf and on behalf of the student;
• You consent to the collection and processing of the student's essay content and related information as described in Section 6 and the Privacy Policy, including transmission of the student's essay to our third-party AI provider; and
• You accept full responsibility for the student's use of the Service, for controlling the student's access to it, and for the consequences of any misuse.

No one under 13. The Service is not available to, or intended for, anyone under the age of 13, and you may not permit anyone under 13 to use your account. If we learn that a user is under 13, we will terminate the account and delete the associated information, except transaction records and our security and acceptance logs, which are retained as described in the Privacy Policy.

Your account. You are responsible for safeguarding your login credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account. All information you provide when creating or maintaining your account must be accurate, current, and complete. Notify us promptly at support@collegeessaypanel.com if you believe your account has been accessed without authorization.

3. What the Service Does

The Service reviews college application essays using a structured panel of seven AI reviewer personas. The panel scores your draft, debates it, and returns a verdict (the scores, the consensus, and the call) together with a written report of revision directions. The panel directs revisions rather than drafting for you: its directions are cuts, reorders, and restructures anchored to sentences already in your draft. It never writes replacement essay text for you to paste in. You remain the author of your work, and you are responsible for any certification you sign with each application.

Reviews are paid for with prepaid credits sold in one-time packs, as described in Section 8. Your first verdict is free; one credit unseals the full written report. When a target school's verified AI policy prohibits all AI involvement, the panel stops before reading your essay and your credit (or free run) is returned.

The Service is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any college, university, admissions office, testing organization, or application platform.

4. Nature of the Feedback; Assumption of Risk

You acknowledge and agree that:

• Scores and feedback are generated by an AI system, not by a human reviewer, admissions officer, or professional editor.
• Results are estimates and opinions for informational purposes only. They are not predictions of, and do not guarantee, any admissions outcome, grade, scholarship, or other result.
• AI output can be inaccurate, incomplete, or inconsistent. The same essay may receive different results on different runs.
• The Service does not provide educational, admissions, legal, or other professional advice, and no output of the Service should be treated as such.
• Neither you nor any student using your account will rely on the Service as the basis for any academic, admissions, or other decision. Any such reliance is at your sole risk. You (and any student using your account) are responsible for exercising independent judgment and, where appropriate, consulting teachers, counselors, or other qualified professionals.
• You assume all risk arising from your use of, or reliance on, any score or feedback generated by the Service.
• The Service does not guarantee any improvement in your writing, applications, or outcomes.

5. Your Content and License to Us

You retain all ownership rights in the essays and other materials you submit (“Your Content”).

By submitting Your Content, you grant us a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, process, transmit, and analyze it solely to provide the Service to you, including storing your drafts under your account to power your draft history and revision rounds, and sending them to our third-party AI provider to generate your scores and reports. This license exists only for the purpose of delivering the Service and ends when you delete the stored content or your account, as described in Section 6.

You represent and warrant that Your Content is the original work of you or of the student using your account, that you have the necessary rights and consents to submit it, and that submitting it does not violate any law or any other person's rights. “Your Content” includes essays submitted through your account by a student you have permitted to use it.

6. How We Handle Your Essay

• Your essays and draft versions are stored under your account to power your draft history and revision rounds; each revision round re-reads your prior draft. We retain them until you delete them or your account.
• We store your scores and written reports under your account so you can view past results and track your revisions.
• Deleting is permanent. You may delete any essay at any time within the app, which permanently removes its drafts and every review generated from it. You may also delete your entire account at any time. There is no recycle bin.
• Inactivity purge. If your account has no activity for 365 days, we delete your stored essays and results after warning you through the Service. Transaction records and our security and acceptance logs are retained as described in the Privacy Policy.
• Your essays and results are never used to train any machine-learning model, and are never used for advertising or analytics.
• Full details on what we collect, how long we keep it, and your choices are in our Privacy Policy.

7. Third-Party AI Provider

The Service relies on a third-party artificial intelligence provider to generate scores and feedback. Your essay is transmitted to that provider for processing. Under our commercial agreement with that provider, your content is not used to train its models. Your use of the Service is also subject to the provider's applicable terms where relevant.

8. Payments, Credits, and Refunds

• Reviews are paid for with prepaid credits, sold in one-time packs. The packs currently offered are 1 credit for $10, 3 credits for $25, and 10 credits for $50. This is not a subscription: nothing renews, and there are no recurring charges.
• One credit pays for one panel action: a full review of a new essay, a revision-round review of an updated draft, or unsealing a gated free report.
• Your first verdict is free, one per person: the panel convenes in full, and you see every score, the consensus, and the call at no charge. The full written report stays sealed until you spend one credit to unseal it.
• Credits never expire. Credits are not transferable, are not redeemable for cash, and have no monetary value outside the Service.
• Prices are shown before you buy and may change for future purchases; changes never affect credits you already own.
• Payments are processed through our third-party payment processor, Stripe. By providing payment information, you authorize us to charge the applicable fee. Your payment is also subject to Stripe's terms and privacy policy. Your card details go directly to Stripe; we never see or store your card number.
• If a run fails due to a technical error on our side, a paid credit is automatically returned to your balance, and resuming the failed run costs nothing unless the credit was already returned. A failed free run keeps your free verdict: resume it at no cost, with your saved progress intact.
• If a run is stopped by a school's verified AI policy before your essay is reviewed, the credit is automatically returned (for a free run, your free verdict is restored).
• Credits consumed by a completed review are final, except as required by law. Money refunds may be issued at our discretion through Stripe; when a purchase is refunded, the corresponding credits are removed from your balance.
• If you delete your account, any unused credits are forfeited and are not refunded.
• If we terminate your account without cause, we will refund your unused credit balance.

9. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Submit content that is not your own or that you do not have the right to submit;
• Submit unlawful, infringing, or harmful content;
• Attempt to reverse-engineer, scrape, overload, disrupt, or gain unauthorized access to the Service;
• Impersonate any person or entity, misrepresent your affiliation with anyone, or introduce viruses or other malicious code;
• Use the Service to build a competing product or to train a machine-learning model;
• Create multiple accounts to claim additional free verdicts, or otherwise obtain the free tier more than once;
• Resell, redistribute, or commercially exploit the Service or its output without our written permission;
• Use the Service in any way that violates applicable law.

We may suspend or terminate your access if you violate these Terms.

10. Intellectual Property; Feedback to Us

The Service, including its software, design, text, and branding (but excluding Your Content), is owned by us or our licensors and is protected by intellectual property laws. We grant you a limited, personal, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Service for its intended purpose. The scores and reports we generate for you are provided for your personal use in preparing your own applications.

If you send us suggestions, ideas, or feedback about the Service, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license to use them without restriction or compensation.

11. Disclaimers

THE SERVICE AND ALL SCORES AND FEEDBACK ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, OR SECURE, OR THAT ANY SCORE OR FEEDBACK WILL BE ACCURATE, RELIABLE, OR SUITABLE FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE, INCLUDING ANY ACADEMIC OR ADMISSIONS PURPOSE.

NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED FROM US OR THROUGH THE SERVICE, CREATES ANY WARRANTY OR OBLIGATION NOT EXPRESSLY STATED IN THESE TERMS.

12. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, NEBELO LLC AND ITS OWNERS, EMPLOYEES, AND SUPPLIERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, OR OPPORTUNITIES, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE.

OUR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US FOR THE CREDITS GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM IN THE 30 DAYS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM, OR (B) $25; AND IN NO EVENT WILL OUR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY EXCEED $250.

THIS LIMITATION APPLIES TO ALL CLAIMS, WHETHER BASED IN CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), STRICT LIABILITY, OR ANY OTHER THEORY, AND EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES AND EVEN IF A LIMITED REMEDY FAILS OF ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE.

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability that cannot be limited or excluded under applicable law (such as liability for fraud, willful misconduct, or gross negligence). Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations or exclusions, so some of the above may not apply to you; in that case, our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted by law.

13. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Nebelo LLC and its owners, employees, and agents from any claims, damages, or expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of Your Content, your use of the Service, or your violation of these Terms or of any law or third-party right.

14. Dispute Resolution: Informal Resolution, Binding Arbitration, and Class Action Waiver

PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY. IT REQUIRES THAT MOST DISPUTES BE RESOLVED THROUGH BINDING INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATION AND WAIVES YOUR RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL AND TO PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION.

14.1 Informal Resolution First. Before filing any arbitration or court claim, you agree to first send us a written Notice of Dispute at legal@collegeessaypanel.com describing the dispute and the relief you seek. You and we agree to try in good faith to resolve the dispute within 60 days of the notice. Most concerns can be resolved this way.

14.2 Small Claims Option. Either party may bring an individual claim in small claims court in the county where Nebelo LLC maintains its principal place of business in California, or in your county of residence, instead of arbitration, if the claim qualifies.

14.3 Binding Arbitration. Except as provided in Sections 14.1, 14.2, and 14.4, any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be resolved exclusively by final and binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules and, where applicable, its Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules, each as in effect when the arbitration is filed. The Federal Arbitration Act governs this Section. The arbitration will be conducted by a single arbitrator in the county where Nebelo LLC maintains its principal place of business in California, or by videoconference at your election. For claims seeking $10,000 or less, we will pay all AAA filing, administration, and arbitrator fees, unless the arbitrator finds the claim frivolous or filed for an improper purpose; otherwise, fees are allocated under the AAA's rules. The arbitrator, and not any court, has exclusive authority to resolve any dispute about the interpretation, applicability, enforceability, or formation of this arbitration agreement, except that a court will decide any challenge to the enforceability of the class action waiver in Section 14.5.

14.4 Public Injunctive Relief. To the extent applicable law (including California law) provides that a claim for public injunctive relief may not be waived and must be available in a judicial forum, that limited type of claim may be brought in court. Any such claim will be severed from the arbitration and stayed pending the completion of arbitration of all other claims, and the remainder of this Section 14 will remain in full force.

14.5 Class Action and Jury Waiver. YOU AND WE EACH AGREE THAT ANY DISPUTE WILL BE BROUGHT ONLY IN AN INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING. THE ARBITRATOR MAY NOT CONSOLIDATE CLAIMS OF MORE THAN ONE PERSON. YOU AND WE EACH WAIVE ANY RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL.

14.6 Coordinated Filings. If 25 or more similar arbitration demands are filed against us by the same or coordinated counsel, the demands will be administered under the AAA's Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules as in effect at filing. Each claimant must individually complete the informal resolution process in Section 14.1 before filing, and counsel must certify that each demand is filed with the named claimant's knowledge and authorization. The parties will cooperate with any AAA-appointed process arbitrator to resolve the demands fairly and efficiently, including through staged or grouped proceedings consistent with AAA procedures.

14.7 Your Right to Opt Out. You may opt out of this arbitration agreement (Sections 14.3, 14.5, and 14.6) by emailing legal@collegeessaypanel.com within 30 days of first accepting these Terms, stating your name, account email, and that you opt out of arbitration. Opting out does not affect any other part of these Terms.

14.8 Severability of this Section. If the class action waiver is found unenforceable as to a particular claim, that claim (and only that claim) will proceed in court, and the remainder of this Section will continue to apply to all other claims.

15. Time Limit to Bring Claims

To the extent permitted by law, any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service must be filed within one (1) year after the claim accrues, or it is permanently barred.

16. Changes to the Service or Terms

We may modify or discontinue the Service at any time. We may also update these Terms; if we make material changes, we will update the effective date above and ask you to re-accept the updated Terms in the app before your next review. Your continued use after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.

17. Termination

You may stop using the Service at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access if you violate these Terms or if we discontinue the Service. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including Sections 4, 5, 10 through 15, and 19) will survive.

18. Governing Law and Venue

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. For any dispute not subject to arbitration under Section 14, the state and federal courts located in the county where Nebelo LLC maintains its principal place of business in California will have exclusive jurisdiction, and you consent to personal jurisdiction and venue there.

19. Miscellaneous

• Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held invalid or unenforceable, that provision will be enforced to the maximum extent permissible and the remaining provisions will remain in full force.
• Entire Agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service and supersede all prior agreements on that subject.
• No Waiver. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of our right to do so later.
• Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, sale of assets, or by operation of law.
• Force Majeure. We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.
• Notices. You agree to receive account notices electronically, through the Service or by email to the address on your account, and to keep that address current.
• Third-Party Sites. The Service links to external sites, including schools' published policy pages, for reference. We are not responsible for their content or availability.
• Headings. Section headings are for convenience only and have no legal effect.

20. Contact

Questions about these Terms can be sent to support@collegeessaypanel.com or through the contact form. Legal notices, including the Notice of Dispute and arbitration opt-out described in Section 14, go to legal@collegeessaypanel.com.