Terms of Service

You must be at least 13 years old to create an account. Most people here are 16 to 18 and working on Common App or UC applications.

If you are under 18, please read these terms with a parent or guardian. Posting an essay means strangers can read it and write comments about it, and that is worth understanding before you start.

We do not currently verify anyone's age. If you believe an account belongs to someone under 13, contact us and we will remove it.

You need an email address and a password. Keep your password to yourself — anything done from your account is treated as done by you.

One account per person. Don't impersonate someone else.

Your essays and comments remain your work. By posting, you give CREX permission to store and display them on the site according to the visibility you choose. That permission exists so the site can function; it does not make your writing ours, and we do not sell it.

Only post writing that is yours to post. Don't upload someone else's essay, and don't include other people's private information — real names, contact details, or anything identifying a third party who has not agreed to it.

Each essay has one of three settings:

• Public — listed in the feed with your display name.
• Anonymous — listed in the feed with your name hidden from other readers.
• Private link — not listed anywhere; only someone with the exact link can open it.

One thing we want to be straightforward about: anonymous is not anonymous to us. Site administrators can see who wrote an anonymous essay, because handling abuse and takedown requests requires it. Every such look-up is recorded in an internal admin log. Anonymous hides you from other users, not from the people running the site.

Also treat a private link as unlisted rather than secret — anyone you send it to can forward it.

The point of this site is useful feedback on writing. Criticism of an essay is welcome. Attacks on the person who wrote it are not.

Specifically, don't post content that:

• harasses, threatens, demeans or sexualises anyone
• is hateful toward people based on who they are
• shares someone else's private information
• is spam, advertising, or an offer to write essays for money
• is illegal

Comments are screened automatically when you post them. Depending on the result, a comment may be published normally, published but flagged for a human to look at, held out of sight pending review, or refused outright.

Anyone can report an essay or comment. Several reports on the same comment will hide it automatically until an administrator reviews it.

Repeated violations can suspend your ability to comment. Suspensions are not permanent bans and you can appeal one from inside the site; an administrator reads the appeal and decides.

Administrators can also remove any essay or comment. We would rather explain a removal than not, but we may act first when something is clearly harmful.

Automated screening is imperfect in both directions. It will occasionally hold back something harmless, and it will occasionally miss something it should have caught. That is why reports and appeals exist.

Some accounts show a badge: a verified current student, or a verified counsellor/admissions professional. A student badge means the account confirmed a school email address, or gave school details that an administrator accepted. A professional badge means an administrator reviewed the organisation and role they submitted.

A badge is a signal, not a guarantee. We are not able to fully verify anyone's identity or credentials, and you should weigh advice accordingly.

You can delete your account at any time from your account settings.

When you do, your essays and the comments on them are removed. Comments you left on other people's essays are kept, but reattributed to a placeholder account called "Deleted User" with your name removed. We keep them because deleting them would tear holes in conversations on other people's work — a reply would stop making sense without the comment it answered.

If you want those comments gone as well, contact us and ask, and tell us which ones.

You can block another user. Blocking hides their activity from you and yours from them. It is not a report — if someone is breaking the rules, report them as well so an administrator sees it.

Feedback here comes from other users, including strangers and volunteers. It is not professional admissions counselling, and nothing on this site is a prediction or promise about any admissions outcome.

The site is provided as-is. We are a small project and cannot promise it will always be available, or that a technical failure will never lose data. Keep your own copy of anything you care about.

We may suspend or remove an account that breaks these rules, or that puts other users at risk. You can stop using CREX at any time by deleting your account.

If we change these terms in a way that matters, we will say so on the site rather than quietly editing this page.

To report something urgent, request a takedown, ask about an account belonging to a child under 13, or raise anything else: TBD — contact address to be added before launch.

Some things a lawyer still needs to settle here, and we would rather leave blank than guess: which country's law governs these terms, how disputes get resolved, and the exact wording of the liability and warranty sections.