Terms of Service

Last updated: 6 October 2026 · Version 2026-10-06 Status: in force for the beta. Takes effect for the public on the day Bema opens.

These are the terms on which you may use Bema. They are a contract, so parts of this document are unavoidably formal — but we have tried to keep the important parts in ordinary words.

By creating an account — which requires ticking a box that says you have read and agree to these terms, the Privacy Policy and the AI & Academic Integrity policy — you agree to them. We record the date and the version you agreed to. If you do not agree, do not use Bema.

If you downloaded Bema from Apple's App Store, the End User License Agreement also applies to the app itself.

1. The most important thing

Bema helps you prepare your college applications. It does not submit them.

You submit your applications on the Common Application, on the College Board, on StudentAid.gov, or directly to a college. Bema is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any of those organizations. We will never ask for your login to any of them, and if anything claiming to be Bema does, it is not us.

Anything you draft in Bema — a Common App section, an essay, an activity description — you copy across yourself. Whether an application is submitted, on time and complete, is your responsibility.

2. Who may use Bema

You must be 13 or older. When you sign up we ask your age range (under 13, 13 to 17, or 18 and over). If you tell us you are under 13 we will not create an account and we do not keep anything you typed.

If you are 13 to 17, you confirm that a parent or guardian knows you are using Bema. We do not require their permission to create a student account — see the Children's Privacy notice for why — but a parent who objects can ask us to close the account at getbemaai@gmail.com.

A parent or guardian account must be held by an adult (18 or over). By creating one you also agree to the Parent & Guardian Agreement.

You must give accurate information when you register, keep your password to yourself, and tell us at getbemaai@gmail.com if you think someone else has got into your account. Passwords must be at least 8 characters and cannot be one of the passwords everyone uses.

One person, one account. Do not share a login.

3. Student and parent accounts

Bema has two kinds of account and they are deliberately different.

Students own their work. A student decides what goes in their application and what does not.

Parents are connected only when a student accepts their request. A connected parent can see the student's progress and read their essays, and can leave comments, suggest wording and assign tasks. A parent cannot edit the student's work — a suggestion is a proposal that only the student can accept.

A student may disconnect any parent at any time. Where parents are separated, each connects independently and neither can see the other's account.

If you are a parent, you agree to use that access to support your student rather than to act on their behalf without their knowledge.

4. The AI, and academic integrity

Bema's AI features will not write your essay for you. They will help you write it — rewording, synonyms, structure and short labelled examples — as set out in our AI & Academic Integrity policy, which forms part of these terms.

In short: you agree that the work you submit to a college is your own. Using Bema's coach to think, structure, and correct your own sentences is legitimate and is what it is for. Passing off text you did not write as your own is not, and it puts your application at risk in ways we cannot protect you from.

AI output can be wrong. Scholarship deadlines, aid estimates, admissions advice and anything else the AI produces are starting points to verify, not facts. Check anything that matters against the college's own website.

The AI is an AI. It is not a person, a counselor, a therapist or a licensed professional, and it says so. If you tell it you are in crisis it will stop and give you the number of a real person (988 in the US). Our AI safety protocol is published in full.

AI usage is limited per account. Every AI request costs us money, so each account has a daily and a weekly allowance (shown in Settings). When you reach it, the AI pauses until it resets; your drafts, lists and everything else keep working. We may change the allowances with notice in the app.

5. What you may not do

Do not:

use Bema to break the law, or to help anyone else do so
upload someone else's essay or work and present it as your own
try to access another family's data, or probe the service for weaknesses outside the terms of our Security policy
scrape, resell, or rebuild Bema's content or data
upload malware, or anything designed to disrupt the service
harass anyone, including through the comment features
impersonate anyone, including a parent, a student, or a school official
attempt to make the AI produce essay text for you to submit as your own
use automated tools to create accounts, send requests, or bypass the human check or the AI allowances
misrepresent your age, or hold a parent account if you are not an adult

We may suspend or close an account that does any of this.

6. Your content is yours

You keep every right in what you write. Your essays are your essays.

You give us a limited license to store, display and process your content solely in order to run Bema for you — to save your draft, to show it to a parent you connected, and to pass it to our AI provider when you ask for help with it. That license exists only to provide the service, ends when you delete the content, and does not let us publish your work or train models on it.

We do not use your essays or your Common App answers to train AI models, and our AI provider does not either.

7. Our content is ours

Bema's software, design, checklist content, explanatory writing and brand belong to Bema's founders (and, once it is registered, Bema's company). You may use them to prepare your own applications. You may not copy them into a competing product.

8. Availability

We will try to keep Bema running, but we do not promise it will always be available. We may change or discontinue features. If we discontinue Bema altogether, we will give you at least 30 days' notice and a way to export everything before your data is deleted.

We strongly recommend keeping your own copy of anything critical — especially final essay drafts — somewhere other than Bema. That is good practice with any service, including ours.

9. No guarantees about admission

Bema does not improve your chance of admission to any college, and nothing in the product should be read as a prediction. Readiness scores, fit-quiz results, aid estimates and reach/match/safety labels are organizational tools. They are not forecasts, and colleges do not see them.

10. Disclaimers

Bema is provided "as is". To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

We are not a school, a licensed counselor, a financial advisor, an attorney, or an immigration advisor. Bema's content — including its financial-aid explanations and estimates — is general information, not advice about your situation. For decisions that matter, talk to your school counselor, a financial aid officer, or a professional.

11. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, Bema and its founders are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, or a missed deadline.

Our total liability for any claim relating to Bema is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or US$100.

Some jurisdictions do not allow these limits, in which case they apply to you only as far as the law permits.

12. Ending it

You may delete your account at any time from Settings, or by emailing getbemaai@gmail.com.

We may suspend or close your account if you break these terms, if we learn the holder is under 13, if we must for legal reasons, or if your account has been inactive for more than two years — with notice and a chance to export your data, except where a serious breach makes immediate action necessary.

13. Changes to these terms

If we make a material change we will email you and show a notice in the app at least 14 days before it takes effect. Continuing to use Bema after that means you accept the new terms. If you do not, delete your account and export your data.

14. Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Florida, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Any dispute will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Miami-Dade County, Florida, and we both consent to that jurisdiction.

We do not require arbitration and we do not ask you to waive a class action. Many of our users are minors, and we would rather a dispute be heard somewhere a minor's interests are protected by default.

Nothing here removes a right you have as a consumer that cannot be waived under the law where you live.

15. The rest

If a provision is unenforceable, the rest stays in force. Our not enforcing something once does not waive it. These terms, together with the Privacy Policy, the AI & Academic Integrity policy, the Children's Privacy notice, the Parent & Guardian Agreement (for parent accounts) and the End User License Agreement (for the App Store app), are the whole agreement between us.

Contact: getbemaai@gmail.com · Bema, Miami, Florida