Last updated: [DATE]
I am Dave Burgio. I run Waypoint Admissions, a solo college admissions consulting practice operating under SteelBase LLC, a Colorado limited liability company (entity 20261465472), through a registered trade name. This policy explains what information I collect from you and your student, what I do with it, and what control you have over it.
I wrote this myself, in plain English, because you should be able to read it in a few minutes and know exactly where your family's information goes.
This policy covers information I collect through my website, my intake forms, my scheduling page, email, and calls with you, in connection with The List Check, The Roadmap, and The Living Roadmap.
My clients are families. That usually means a parent or legal guardian and a high school student who is a minor. So this policy is written on the assumption that much of the information I hold belongs to a person under 18.
I ask for financial information because a college list built without it is not useful to you. Net cost is part of the strategy. If you would rather not share a figure, tell me, and I will work with ranges or leave that piece out. You will get a less precise net cost picture, and that is a fair trade to make if you want to make it.
There are things I do not ask for and do not want. I do not need a Social Security number, a FAFSA or CSS Profile login, tax returns, bank account numbers, immigration status, or health records. If you send me something like that, I will tell you and delete it.
My site uses the cookies it needs to function plus basic analytics. I do not run advertising trackers, retargeting pixels, or ad networks, so nothing from my site follows you around the internet after you leave. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, I honor it, though I do not sell or share information in the first place.
Most of it comes from you directly, through my web intake forms, over email, and during our calls. I do not buy student lists. I do not scrape social media. I do not collect information about your student from anyone other than you and your student, unless you specifically ask me to talk with someone else, such as a school counselor.
A parent or legal guardian must be the contracting party and the payer for every Waypoint engagement. That same parent or guardian is the person who provides the student's information to me, or who agrees to the student providing it.
When you submit a student profile or complete an intake form, you are confirming that you are the student's parent or legal guardian and that you agree to my collecting and using that information as described here. If a student fills out a form on their own, I will not begin work until I have confirmed with a parent or guardian that it was authorized.
Students often email me directly during the follow-up window, and that is fine by design. Anything your student sends me becomes part of the same file, under your control, on the same terms described in this policy.
I use it to do the work you hired me to do, and for nothing else. Specifically:
I use what you give me to advise. Your student is the sole author of every application and essay, and I do not write any part of an application. Every admission decision belongs to the college, and I do not guarantee any outcome.
I do not use your information to build marketing lists or to profile you, and I do not use it for any purpose you did not hire me for. If I ever want to use something from our work together as an anonymized example, I will ask you first, in writing. Saying no costs you nothing and changes nothing about the work.
I audio-record the intro call. Families cover a lot of ground in a short call, and I would rather pay attention to you than write notes the whole time. The recording lets me go back and catch the detail I would otherwise lose between the call and the written deliverable. I record any later call, such as a review session or an annual strategy call, only when I have told you first and you have agreed.
Here is how I handle recordings:
These are hard commitments:
The only outside parties who ever touch your information are the service providers listed in the next section, who handle it in order to run the practice, and only for that purpose.
I am one person, so I rely on ordinary business software. Each of these companies has its own privacy policy, and I encourage you to read them.
The Living Roadmap is $2,995 for the first year, then renews automatically each year at $1,495 until your student graduates from high school or you cancel. To run that renewal, Stripe keeps your payment method on file securely. I still never see or store your full card number. You can cancel the renewal or update the card at any time by emailing me, and the details of notice and timing are in my terms.
I use third-party research tools and data sources to compile school information, alongside my own research engine and database. Those tools receive queries about schools. They do not receive your student's name, your family's financial information, or any other detail that identifies you. I do not paste identifying client information into any third-party AI tool.
You can ask me to delete your family's information at any time, for any reason, and you do not have to explain why. Email me at dave@waypointadmissions.com.
You can also ask me to:
I will confirm your request within a few business days and complete it within 30 days. If something makes that impossible, I will tell you before the 30 days are up and give you a date. Your email comes straight to me. There is no ticket queue and no support team in between. If I need to verify that you are the parent or guardian on the account before I act, I will ask.
Two honest limits. First, if you ask me to delete everything in the middle of an active engagement, I will not be able to finish the work, and we should talk before I do it. Second, I will keep the payment and tax records I am required to keep, and backups take some time to cycle out.
This is the part I take most seriously, because most of what I hold describes a minor.
Waypoint Admissions is sold to adults. A parent or legal guardian agrees to the terms and pays, and a minor cannot enter into an engagement with me. My website is written for parents. I do not advertise to children, and I do not run ads at all.
I do hold information about minors, because that is the nature of college admissions work. I hold it because a parent or legal guardian gave it to me or agreed that the student could. Here is what that means in practice:
I do not knowingly collect information from a child under 13. If I learn that I have information from a child under 13 without a parent or guardian's involvement, I delete it. If your student is under 13 and you want to work with me, all information comes through you.
Some states, including California, Colorado, Virginia, Connecticut, and others, give residents specific rights over their personal information. Depending on where you live, those rights may include knowing what is collected, getting a copy, correcting it, deleting it, and not being treated differently for exercising any of them.
My position is simple. I extend the rights described above to every client, in every state, whether or not a law requires it. If your state gives you a right I have not listed, email me and I will honor it to the extent it applies.
On the questions those laws usually ask about: I do not sell personal information, I do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and I do not use it for automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects. To exercise any right, email dave@waypointadmissions.com with the word "Privacy" in the subject line. You may use an authorized agent, and I may ask that agent for proof that you authorized them. If I ever deny a request, I will tell you why, and you can ask me to reconsider.
There are narrow situations outside the ones above where I might have to disclose information. They are:
Those are the only exceptions, and I have never had to use one.
Here is what I actually do:
Here is what I will not tell you. I will not tell you your information is guaranteed to be safe. No one can honestly promise that. I depend on the security of Google, Stripe, Calendly, and my web host, and a serious breach at any of them is outside my control. What I can promise is that I keep the footprint small, I do not hand your information around, and if I ever learn that your information was exposed, I will tell you promptly and directly.
Waypoint is a US practice serving families in the United States, and the tools I use store information in the United States. I do not market to or knowingly serve families in the European Union or the United Kingdom.
I have no plans to sell or transfer this practice. If that ever changed, or if I closed it down, I would tell current clients before any file moved, and you could tell me to delete your file instead of transferring it.
Separately from Waypoint, I volunteer as a West Point admissions evaluator. That role is unpaid and completely walled off from this practice. I do not evaluate anyone who is a Waypoint client, I do not charge anyone I evaluate, and Waypoint offers no paid service academy consulting. Information you give me as a Waypoint client is never used in that volunteer role, and nothing from that role ends up in your Waypoint file. Waypoint is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any institution, including the United States Military Academy.
If I change this policy, I will update the "last updated" date at the top. If the change is significant, meaning it affects what I collect, how I use it, or who sees it, I will email current clients directly, because no one should have to watch a website for edits. I will not apply a material change retroactively to information I already hold without telling you first and giving you the chance to delete your file.
Questions about this policy, or about anything I hold on your family, come straight to me.
Dave Burgio, Waypoint Admissions, operating under SteelBase LLC
I answer my own email.