1. Acceptance of Terms
By accessing or using Cohort1's services, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you are under 18 years of age, your parent or legal guardian must review and accept these terms on your behalf.
2. Description of Service
Cohort1 provides merit-based peer networking services for students ages 13-18, including:
- Merit-based admissions assessment and evaluation
- Matching with intellectual peer groups (cohorts)
- Facilitated weekly discussion sessions
- Rotating cohort assignments every quarter
Cohort1 provides active merit-based peer networking services for exceptional students ages 13-18.
3. Eligibility
To participate in Cohort1, students must:
- Be between 13 and 18 years of age
- Pass our merit-based admissions assessment
- Have parental or legal guardian consent if under 18
- Agree to abide by our Code of Conduct
4. Application and Assessment
Application: Families submit an application for admission consideration. Submission of an application does not guarantee admission.
Assessment: Qualified applicants are invited to complete our admissions assessment. The application fee is $100 and is non-refundable regardless of admission decision. The fee covers both the application review and the assessment interview, which evaluates intellectual curiosity, analytical thinking, and collaboration potential.
Admission Decisions: Admission is merit-based and determined solely by assessment performance. We reserve the right to make final admission decisions.
5. Membership and Fees
Membership Fee: Upon admission, membership costs $200 per month, billed monthly.
Payment Terms: Payment is due on the first day of each month. Failure to pay may result in suspension or termination of membership.
Price Changes: We reserve the right to adjust pricing with 30 days' notice.
Financial Aid: Need-based financial aid covering up to 100% of membership fees is available. Financial need does not impact admission decisions.
6. Cancellation and Refunds
Cancellation: Members may submit a cancellation request through their account or by written notice to hello@cohort1.org. The request stops future automatic renewal charges, and access continues through the current paid billing period.
Cancellation During an Active Cycle: If a member cancels after placement while a 3-month cohort cycle is still underway, the member cannot join or take part in any Cohort1 program for 12 months following cancellation. If a member cancels outside an active cycle, the standard admissions process applies unless another removal policy applies.
Refund Policy: Monthly membership fees are non-refundable. No refunds will be provided for partial months.
Application Fee: The $100 application fee is non-refundable under all circumstances.
Termination by Cohort1: We reserve the right to terminate membership for violations of our Code of Conduct or these Terms. In such cases, no refunds will be provided.
7. Code of Conduct
All participants must:
- Treat peers, facilitators, and staff with respect
- Engage in discussions in good faith
- Maintain confidentiality of other participants' personal information
- Refrain from harassment, bullying, discrimination, or hate speech
- Not share inappropriate or explicit content
- Not disrupt sessions or impede others' participation
Violations may result in warnings, suspension, or permanent termination without refund.
8. Intellectual Property
All content, materials, curriculum, program descriptions, application flows, assessment materials, facilitation methods, software, design elements, trademarks, service marks, trade dress, and other materials provided by Cohort1 remain the intellectual property of Cohort1 or its licensors. Participants may not reproduce, distribute, display, publish, create derivative works from, or commercialize any Cohort1 materials without written permission.
You may not use Cohort1 content, marks, screenshots, structure, program descriptions, workflows, or materials to launch, market, train, benchmark, or support a confusingly similar or competing commercial service. You also may not reverse engineer or attempt to derive the admissions process, application flow, assessment model, facilitation model, matching logic, member experience, or other non-public aspects of the service except to the extent such restriction is prohibited by law.
Participants retain ownership of their own contributions during sessions but grant Cohort1 a limited license to use anonymized or aggregated content for program improvement and marketing purposes.
9. Automated Access, Scraping, and Abuse
You may not access or use Cohort1 through automated means except where we have expressly permitted that access in writing or through published crawler guidance. Prohibited activity includes scraping, crawling, spidering, harvesting, bulk copying, data extraction, dataset creation, model training, automated account creation, form spam, token guessing, vulnerability probing, or repeated high-volume requests.
You may not bypass, disable, interfere with, or attempt to circumvent rate limits, bot protections, challenge or CAPTCHA mechanisms, geographic controls, authentication, authorization, session controls, logging, or other access controls. You may not use rotating proxies, botnets, fake identities, compromised devices, anonymous infrastructure, or other evasion techniques to access the service.
Cohort1 may block, throttle, challenge, suspend, investigate, log, preserve evidence of, or report activity that we believe violates these Terms, threatens the service, harms users, or infringes our rights. Unauthorized commercial copying, scraping, or misuse may result in account termination, takedown requests, abuse reports to infrastructure providers, domain registrars, search engines, platforms, or payment providers, cease-and-desist notices, damages claims, and other remedies available under law.
10. Privacy and Data
Your use of Cohort1 is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference.
11. Disclaimers
Cohort1 is an educational peer networking service, not a licensed educational institution or therapy service. We do not provide:
- Academic degrees, credits, or certifications
- Mental health services or counseling
- Guarantees of academic or career outcomes
Service "As Is": The service is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind, express or implied. We do not guarantee uninterrupted access or specific outcomes.
12. Limitation of Liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Cohort1 and its officers, directors, employees, and agents shall not be liable for:
- Any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages
- Loss of profits, revenue, data, or use
- Damages arising from participant interactions or peer conduct
Our total liability to you for all claims shall not exceed the amount you paid to Cohort1 in the 12 months preceding the claim.
13. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Cohort1 from any claims, damages, losses, or expenses (including legal fees) arising from your violation of these Terms or your use of the service.
14. Dispute Resolution
Informal Resolution: Before filing any claim, you agree to contact us at hello@cohort1.org to seek informal resolution.
Arbitration: Any disputes not resolved informally shall be resolved through binding arbitration in accordance with the American Arbitration Association's rules, rather than in court.
Class Action Waiver: You agree to resolve disputes individually and waive the right to participate in class actions or class arbitrations.
15. Governing Law
These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to its conflict of law provisions.
16. Changes to Terms
We reserve the right to modify these Terms at any time. We will notify users of material changes via email. Continued use of the service after changes constitutes acceptance of the modified Terms.
17. Severability
If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect.
18. Contact Information
For questions about these Terms, please contact us:
Email: hello@cohort1.org
Website: cohort1.org