Privacy Policy

What we collect by default: nothing

Your GPA, age, TOPIK level, and the result are all worked out inside your own browser. We don't store them, and the calculation never sends them to our analytics or a database.

One honest exception: if you copy and share your result link, your GPA travels inside that link's web address. Anyone you send it to (and the server that loads it) can read it from the URL, and it may be recorded in that server's standard access logs. Our app doesn't save it to a database, but it isn't a secret value, so don't share the link if you'd rather keep your GPA private.

The same holds for the study cost calculator, and with no exception at all. Your tuition, living costs, deposits, scholarships and family budget are worked out inside your own browser. They are not sent to us, to our analytics, or to anyone else; they are never written into the web address, so there is no link to leak them; and nothing is saved in your browser either, so closing the tab discards what you typed.

Email (deadline alerts)

We collect your email address only if you choose to opt in to GKS deadline alerts. Nothing else is ever attached to it: no GPA, age, TOPIK level, or result.

You confirm first (double opt-in). After you submit your address we send a confirmation email; you start receiving deadline alerts only after you click the link to confirm. Until you confirm, we send you nothing.

Who stores it. Your email, your subscription status, and a small consent record (which version of this copy you agreed to) are stored by our email provider, Buttondown (a service based in the United States), so that we can send the alerts. No GPA, age, TOPIK level, or result is ever sent to them. We do not send your IP address to them either; like any web service, Buttondown automatically records the network metadata of our server's request (our server's own IP, not yours).

Unsubscribe or delete. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe link that stops the alerts. To remove your data entirely, email studysunbae@gmail.com and we will permanently delete your subscriber record, including the consent record.

How long we keep it. We keep your email only while you are subscribed. Unsubscribing stops the emails; a deletion request permanently removes your address and consent record from our email provider. We aim to handle deletion and other privacy requests within 7 business days.

Abuse protection. To stop spam to the sign-up form, we briefly keep a keyed hash tied to the rate-limit time window instead of your IP address in any readable form. It expires automatically and is not used to identify you.

Analytics

When configured, we use privacy-friendly, aggregate analytics (GoatCounter) to count page visits and feature use. It records no raw GPA, age, TOPIK level, or email, and no precise result or country-and-score combination; your result link's query (which carries your GPA) is stripped from everything sent to analytics. It loads only when analytics is configured, stores no tracking identifiers in cookies or local storage, and does no cross-site tracking.

Advertising

StudySunbae carries display ads on its guide and reference pages, served by Google AdSense. That is how the site is paid for. Google and its partners may set cookies or read device identifiers to serve and measure those ads, and (where you have permitted it) to personalise them.

An ad never carries your GPA. The checker does carry advertising, and the reason that needs explaining is this: an ad request reports the full web address of the page it ran on, query and all. A result link carries your GPA inside that address. So the address is what we keep clean, rather than asking you to trust a promise about it.

How we make that hold. Working out a result no longer writes anything into your address bar, so a checking session stays on a plain /gpa-checker address with no GPA in it — a share link is built only when you press Copy or Email. And in the one case that cannot fix — opening a result link somebody sent you, where the GPA is in the address from the first byte — the checker's ad slots render nothing at all: no script, no request, no ad.

The cost calculator carries no ads at all. Its page has no ad component anywhere on it, so the figures you type there are never on screen alongside an ad request.

Ads never see your inputs. Your GPA, age, TOPIK level, and result are worked out in your browser. They are not sent to Google, to an advertiser, or to anyone else, and no ad targeting is built from them. Advertisers also have no influence on the GPA baseline, the conversion table, or which universities we list — those come from published GKS sources and are not for sale.

If you are in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, you are asked for consent before any advertising cookie is set, through a Google-certified consent message. It offers a plain “Do not consent” button next to “Consent” — refusing is one click, the same as accepting, and you can change your answer later. You can also review Google's own description of how it uses data from sites that use its services, and opt out of personalised ads at Google My Ad Center.

Cookies

The tool needs no cookies to work and sets none for tracking. The advertising cookies described under Advertising are the only cookies on this site. They are set when you visit a page that carries an ad, and — like any cookie — they then persist in your browser across the rest of the site, including on pages that carry no ads. In the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland they are set only after you consent.

Contact and data requests

For any privacy question (including a request to access or delete anything we might hold about you), contact studysunbae@gmail.com. If you subscribed to deadline alerts, you can unsubscribe with the one-click link in any email, or ask us to delete your address entirely.

Affiliation

StudySunbae is independent and is not affiliated with GKS, NIIED, or the South Korean government. It is an unofficial pre-check, not an admissions decision.