Protecting student voice, professional judgment and private information
Responsible AI helps people make better decisions without taking over their thinking, crossing academic-integrity boundaries or exposing information to the wrong people.
Dakota gives tutors and counselors faster and deeper preparation. It enables you to give students personalized support designed to comply with the Common App Fraud Policy while helping ensure each student’s work stays authentically their own.
Five Commitments Across the Platform
Data privacy College CoPilot limits data use to educational purposes, protects student records and does not expose private information across unrelated users or contexts.
Research-based Pedagogy Dakota does not think for the student. It asks questions, explains, prompts reflection and supports basic revision such as grammar while the student supplies the ideas, judgment and substantive work. Dakota follows defined learning frameworks and supports understanding rather than answer-getting.
Strong Guardrails Dakota does not create prohibited work, fabricate student information or help users evade academic and institutional rules.
Controlled Access Roles determine access and action. Dakota understands whether it is supporting a student, parent, tutor or counselor and limits information and assistance accordingly.
Workspace Control Schools, counselors and tutors turn any workspace on or off at any time, controlling which support is available.
How Safety Works in Each Workspace
Test Prep
- For tutors: Dakota summarizes performance over time, prepares session priorities and creates targeted practice. It saves analysis time while the tutor retains responsibility for diagnosis, instruction and progression.
- For students: Dakota teaches through mistakes, prompts students to identify the traps they fell for and adapts practice. It explains reasoning rather than simply supplying answers and measures progress across repeated evidence—not one correct response.
College Research & Thrive
- For counselors: Dakota connects the Thrive Report and college research into a clear evidence base for discussion. It supports list-building without diagnosing the student, declaring a college objectively “best” or predicting admission.
- For students: Dakota frames focused research questions and assignments. It cites sources, distinguishes verified facts from inference and leaves the student to investigate, reflect and decide.
Application Coach
- For counselors: Dakota surfaces the most important questions, structural issues and revision priorities. It streamlines early feedback while the counselor retains the judgment and relationship that shape authentic work.
- For students: Dakota helps students understand prompts, deepen reflection, organize their own material and correct objective mechanics. It does not supply substantive ideas, invent experiences, rewrite passages, replace the student’s vocabulary or voice, or generate submit-ready work.
Every student affirms: “I understand that the ideas, experiences, meaning and substantive wording in my applications must be my own.”
Privacy, Security & Compliance
- College CoPilot uses role-based permissions and purpose-limited data practices so each user receives only the information and tools appropriate to their role.
- School deployments are designed to support FERPA and COPPA obligations and applicable GDPR and UK GDPR requirements. Documented controls cover access, correction, retention, deletion, subprocessors and incident response.
- Security controls cover authentication, encryption, access, logging, backups and data handling by AI providers. College CoPilot keeps these claims tied to current product controls and contractual commitments.
- Dakota is designed around the Common App authorship boundary. Its guardrails help prevent substantive AI-written application content, fabricated experiences or credentials, and attempts to disguise AI authorship.
Responsible AI Leadership
Sofia Fenichell, founder of College CoPilot, serves with the EdSAFE AI Industry Alliance and on its Transparency Committee and contributes to wider responsible-AI initiatives. This work informs College CoPilot’s commitment to safe, accountable, fair and effective AI in education.
Policy References
Common App Fraud Policy
U.S. Department of Education: FERPA