PRIVACY POLICY

Higher Degree Recruit (“HDR,” “we,” “us”) is a family-run business, and we treat your family’s information the way we’d want ours treated. This policy explains what we collect, why we collect it, and what we will never do with it. In plain terms: we do not sell your personal information, and we do not sell or share information about your athlete.

1. Information We Collect

Information you give us. When you book a consultation, subscribe to our newsletter, create a member account, or purchase a service, we may collect the parent or guardian’s name, email address, and phone number; the athlete’s name, graduation year, sport, position, state, and high school; academic information such as GPA and test scores; athletic measurables and highlight film links; and the goals and questions you share with us.

Payment information. Payments are processed by our third-party payment processor. We receive confirmation of payment and your billing contact details. We never see or store your full card number.

Information collected automatically. Like most websites, ours records basic technical data such as IP address, browser type, device, pages visited, and referring site. We use this in aggregate to understand which resources families actually find useful.

2. Athletes Under 18

Most of the athletes we serve are minors, and we take that seriously. Our services are purchased and our accounts are created by a parent or legal guardian, who must participate in services provided to an athlete under 18. We do not knowingly collect information directly from children under 13.

We collect only the athlete information needed to guide the recruiting process. A parent or guardian may review, correct, or request deletion of their athlete’s information at any time by contacting us.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information you provide to deliver the services you asked for: preparing for and conducting consultations, evaluating film, building recruiting and financial plans, answering your questions, and maintaining your member account.

We also use it to send service communications and reminders, send our newsletter if you subscribed, process payments, improve our resources, and meet legal and accounting obligations.

4. Sharing Information With College Coaches

This matters, so we’ll be direct about it. Part of our work may involve discussing an athlete with college coaches, athletic directors, or high school and club coaches. We do this only with the parent or guardian’s knowledge and permission, and only for the athlete’s benefit.

We do not publish athlete profiles to a public database, and we do not distribute your athlete’s information to schools as a bulk mailing list. You can tell us at any time to stop sharing your athlete’s information.

5. Service Providers

We use trusted third parties to run the business—payment processing, membership and login, email delivery, scheduling, website hosting, and website analytics. These providers may handle your information only as needed to perform their service for us, and they are not permitted to use it for their own purposes. We may also disclose information if required by law or to protect someone’s safety or our legal rights.

6. What We Never Do

7. Cookies & Analytics

Our site uses cookies to keep you logged in, remember your preferences, and measure general traffic patterns. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, though member login may not work without them. We do not use cookies to build advertising profiles of your family.

8. How Long We Keep Information

We keep member and client information while your membership is active and for a reasonable period afterward, so we can pick up where we left off if you return. Payment and tax records are kept as long as the law requires. You may request deletion at any time, subject to those legal obligations.

9. Our Facebook Page & Other Social Media

Higher Degree Recruit operates a Facebook page, an Instagram account, and a YouTube channel. This section explains how we handle information on those platforms. It applies alongside the rest of this policy.

What you post is public. Comments, reactions, reviews, and posts on our page are visible to anyone and are controlled by the platform, not by us. Please do not post your athlete’s grades, test scores, phone number, home address, birth date, or full class schedule in a public comment. If you post information about a minor publicly, other people can see and copy it. We may hide or delete a public comment that exposes a family’s private information, and we may remove content that is abusive or that targets a coach, program, or athlete.

Messages you send us. If you message us through Facebook Messenger, an Instagram DM, or a page comment, we read and may keep that conversation so we can help you and follow up. If the conversation moves toward services, we will ask you to continue by email or phone, because those channels are more private than a social platform. Do not send payment card numbers, Social Security numbers, or student ID numbers through social media.

What the platforms collect. Meta and YouTube collect information about visits to our page and channel and provide us with aggregated statistics—how many people saw a post, general age ranges, and locations. We see those totals; we do not see the identities behind them. Meta and Google collect and use data under their own privacy policies, over which we have no control. If you interact with our page, their terms and their tracking apply to you regardless of what we do, and we encourage you to review your own privacy settings on those platforms.

Lead forms and links. When we link from social media to a tool or questionnaire on our website, the information you enter there is handled under this policy, not the platform’s. If we ever run a Facebook or Instagram advertisement with a built-in lead form, the contact information you submit comes to us and is used only to answer you and, with your consent, to send our newsletter. We do not upload our member or client lists to Meta for ad targeting, and we do not build advertising audiences from athlete information.

Answers we give publicly are general. Recruiting questions asked in a comment or a group get general information. We will not discuss a specific athlete’s situation, evaluation, grades, or finances in a public thread, even if you ask us to.

Athletes and minors on social media. Our social accounts are intended for parents and guardians. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13 through social media, and we do not send direct messages to an athlete under 18 without a parent included. If your athlete under 18 has sent us a message and you would like it deleted, email us and we will remove it.

10. Your Choices & Rights

You may ask us for a copy of the information we hold about you or your athlete, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. You may unsubscribe from our newsletter using the link in any email, and you may ask us to stop contacting you by phone or text at any time.

Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under state privacy laws. Email us and we’ll honor them.

11. Security

We use reasonable safeguards to protect your information, including reputable providers and restricted access. No website or service can promise perfect security, so please use a strong, unique password for your member account.

12. Changes & Contact

If we update this policy, we’ll change the date at the top and, for meaningful changes, notify members by email. Questions about privacy, or a request about your family’s information? Email randy@higherdegreerecruit.com or call (865) 696-0559. A real person will answer you.