1. Who This Applies To
This Addendum applies to every faculty or advisor account on White Coat World. It is in addition to the Terms of Use, the Privacy Policy, and the Acceptable Use Policy, all of which continue to apply. Where this Addendum conflicts with the Terms of Use, this Addendum controls for faculty accounts.
You accept this Addendum on your own behalf as an individual advisor. You are not accepting it on behalf of your institution — an institution binds itself through the Institutional Account Addendum and, where applicable, a Data Processing Agreement.
2. Eligibility & Verification
- You confirm that you are a current faculty member, academic advisor, pre-health advisor, or comparable staff member at the institution you name on your profile, and that you are authorized by that institution to advise students.
- You will register with your institutional email address and complete verification. White Coat World may require administrator approval before your account can see any student data, and may withhold or revoke that approval at its discretion.
- You will keep your profile accurate. If you leave the institution, change roles, or cease to be authorized to advise students, you will tell us promptly and stop accessing student data. Continuing to access student records after your authorization ends is a breach of this Addendum and may also be a breach of FERPA by your former institution.
3. FERPA — Your Duties as a School Official
When you view a student's profile, you are viewing an education record. Your institution, not White Coat World, is the FERPA record owner. You agree that:
- You will access student records only where you have a legitimate educational interest — that is, only where you need the record to perform your advising duties for that student. Curiosity, personal interest, and any purpose unrelated to advising are not legitimate educational interests.
- You will not redisclose a student's record, or anything you learn from it, to any other person or organization except as permitted by 34 CFR § 99.33 or with the student's written consent. This includes colleagues without their own legitimate educational interest, admissions committees, employers, and family members.
- You will not export, copy, screenshot, print, or retain student records outside the Platform except as your institution's own records policies require, and you will handle any such copy under those policies.
- You will not use anything you learn about a student here to disadvantage them, and you will not represent White Coat World data as an official academic record.
4. Consent Is the Student's, and It Is Revocable
- A student's data becomes visible to you only because that student affirmatively consented to share it with advisors at your institution. That consent is theirs alone.
- Students may revoke consent at any time, without notice or explanation. Your access ends immediately on revocation. You will not ask a student to grant or maintain consent as a condition of advising, a grade, a recommendation letter, a research position, or any other benefit.
- Every profile view, consent grant, and consent revocation is recorded in an append-only audit log retained for 12 months. The log is readable by White Coat World platform administrators; it is not currently available to the student's institution on request or through a portal.
5. Advice & Annotations
- Comments, annotations, and scores you provide are your own professional opinion, not advice from White Coat World. White Coat World does not adopt, endorse, review, or warrant what you write, and you are responsible for it.
- You will not ghost-write, substantially rewrite, or dictate a student's personal statement or application content. Feedback that would let a student submit your words as their own defeats the certification the student must sign, and violates the AI Use Agreement standard that applies platform-wide.
- You will treat students with professional courtesy. Harassment, discrimination, solicitation, and any conduct that would violate your institution's policies are equally prohibited here.
6. Account Security & Incidents
- You will not share your credentials, and you will not let anyone else use your account. A shared faculty login makes every access in the audit log unattributable, which destroys the record your institution relies on.
- If you believe your account has been compromised, or that student data has been exposed or improperly disclosed, you will notify us at security@whitecoatworld.org or through our contact form without undue delay, and in any event within 48 hours of becoming aware.
7. No Employment or Compensation
Faculty participation is voluntary and unpaid. Nothing in this Addendum creates an employment, agency, partnership, joint venture, or contractor relationship between you and White Coat World, and nothing entitles you to compensation, equity, or ownership. Any recognition the Platform shows you is an acknowledgement, not consideration.
8. Suspension & Termination
White Coat World may suspend or terminate a faculty account immediately, without notice, where it reasonably believes this Addendum has been breached or that student data is at risk. Your institution may also direct us to terminate your access. Sections 3, 6, 9, and 10 survive termination.
9. Public-Institution Employees
You accept this Addendum as an individual, but many advisors are employees of public universities and are restricted by state law from personally agreeing to certain terms. Where you are an employee of a public institution and applicable law prohibits you, in your capacity as such an employee, from agreeing to indemnification, binding arbitration, a class-action waiver, a limitation of liability, or a governing law other than that of your own state, those provisions of the Terms of Use do not apply to you to the extent of that restriction, and the corresponding terms of your institution's signed agreement with White Coat World apply instead. The remainder of the Terms of Use and this Addendum continue in full force. Nothing here requires you or your institution to waive sovereign immunity. This mirrors the equivalent provision in the Institutional Account Addendum.
10. Record of Acceptance
Your acceptance of this Addendum — which version, when, and a digest of the published document — is recorded permanently and cannot be withdrawn or altered, including by White Coat World. It is retained after account deletion with your IP address and browser details stripped, as described in Section 12 of the Terms of Use and Section 7 of the Privacy Policy. Institutions may request confirmation that a named advisor accepted this Addendum.