How Dormed works

Every Dormed tour is the same flat $40.00, charged once when you book. There are no per-person prices, no add-ons and no tipping in the app.

That covers one private walking tour of the campus with a current student there — 60–90 minutes, on foot, in public areas of campus.

Payment is taken by Stripe on their own checkout page. Your card details go straight to Stripe — Dormed never sees them and never stores them.

At least 48 hours before the tour. Times inside that window aren't offered in the booking calendar, so your guide has room to plan around it.

No. Dormed is instant-booking: your tour is confirmed the moment your payment clears, and your guide is told straight away. There is no waiting on someone to accept.

Until the payment completes the booking sits as awaiting payment and the guide isn't committed to it. If you close the Stripe page without paying, nothing is booked.

The campus's. A 10:00 AM Stanford tour is 10 AM in Palo Alto, whether you booked it from Boston or from Berlin. Every date and time Dormed shows you — the booking calendar, your pass, your receipts, the calendar invite — is campus local time, and it's labelled that way.

A guide has to register with a university email ending in .edu, and that check is made again on Dormed's servers when the account is created — a browser can't talk its way past it. They also have to click a confirmation link sent to that address before they can sign in at all.

That is the whole of it, and it is worth being blunt about what it does not prove. A .edu address shows someone holds an email address at a school. It is not a check of enrollment, of identity, or of criminal history. Dormed runs no background check, no ID check and no in-person verification of guides. See Terms §2, Accounts and .edu verification.

You tell us the school, the major your student is curious about, and any interests or sports. Dormed scores the guides at that school on how well they fit, nudges the order by their rating, and shows you the matches. You pick — nobody is assigned to you.

Because their photo hasn't been reviewed yet. Dormed checks every guide photo before any family can see it, so a newly uploaded one shows as initials on a coloured tile until it's approved. The guide sees their own photo the whole time; you don't.

Initials are not a warning sign about that guide. It usually just means the photo is new.

Their name, their university, their major, the bio they wrote, their interests and sports, their star average, and their photo once it's approved. Check it against the person who meets you.

At the posted meeting point: Student Union — Main Entrance. It's shown on your booking, on your guide's schedule, and on the calendar invite, so you're both reading the same line.

Arrive about 10 minutes early, and use the in-app chat if you're running late or can't spot each other.

60–90 minutes of walking — expect about two miles — around the public and common areas of campus. Tours don't go into private dorm rooms or residences, and nobody travels by car. Wear comfortable shoes and bring water.

Yes. The adult who booked stays with the visiting student and in sight of them for the whole tour. Your guide is a student showing you around — not a chaperone, and not responsible for supervising a minor.

To be straight with you: this is a condition of booking that Dormed asks of you. Nothing in the app checks it or could. Nobody from Dormed is on campus, and there is no check-in.

Through the message thread on your booking, in My Bookings. It opens as soon as your tour is confirmed and it's the only contact channel by design — phone numbers and email addresses aren't exchanged.

The thread stays open for 48 hours after the tour starts, then closes. A canceled tour's thread closes immediately.

Message them from your booking first — the thread is open, and a guide running late is far more likely than one who isn't coming.

If they genuinely never arrive, here is the honest answer: Dormed has no automatic answer for that yet. Once a tour's start time has passed it can't be canceled in the app, and no refund is issued automatically. Email us at support@dormed.app and a person will sort it out. There is no button for it and we would rather say so than point you at one that doesn't exist.

Yes — cancel from My Bookings and the full $40.00 goes back to the card you paid with, automatically. No email, no form, nobody to ask.

Yes, and it's still self-serve — but the refund is 50% of the fee: $20.00 of $40.00, back to your original card automatically. A cancellation made at exactly 24 hours counts as short notice.

The other $20.00 isn't returned. It stays with Dormed and your guide, who set that time aside and can't fill it at this notice.

Which side of the 24-hour line you're on, and the amount, are both decided on Dormed's servers from Dormed's clock — not from your device. See Terms §4, Cancellation and refunds.

You're refunded the full $40.00 automatically, whenever they cancel, right up to the start time. They're not charged a share and you're not asked to do anything.

The tour moves to your history marked as canceled by your guide, and the message thread closes. Rebooking means starting a new booking — there's no rescheduling in the app.

No. Once the start time has passed, neither side can cancel the tour and no refund is issued through the app.

A booking with no start time on file can't be canceled in the app either, for the same reason: how much comes back depends on how close to the start you are. Those go to support.

Dormed releases it immediately — your bank decides the rest. Refunds usually land in 5–10 business days depending on the card issuer.

The adult who booked, after the tour has happened — one rating per tour, stars plus an optional written note. Guides don't rate families.

Once it's submitted it can't be edited or deleted, so take a beat before you send it.

Yes. Write it as something you'd say to them. Your guide can read the written comment you leave for them, and it's shown next to their other feedback in their dashboard — that's the point of it.

Other families never see the text. What they see on a guide's profile is the star average, nothing more.

It's smoothed, not a raw average. A new guide starts near the platform average and moves toward their own score as ratings accumulate, so one enthusiastic friend can't outrank a long track record — and one bad day can't sink one.

Your name and the details of the tour you booked — school, date, time, and the major and interests you asked to hear about. Not your address, not your phone number, not your email.

Very little, deliberately. The account is yours, not theirs, and a tour is booked around a major and a list of interests rather than a profile of a named child.

Our Privacy Policy lists everything Dormed collects, from both sides.

If anything feels off, end the tour and leave. You don't owe anyone an explanation, and telling us afterwards is enough.

In an emergency, call campus security or 911 first. Dormed support is email only and nobody is watching it minute by minute — it is not an emergency channel.

All three are linked at the bottom of this page, and from Terms & Policies in your account menu once you're signed in. The waiver is the document you sign when booking.

One thing to know before you open them: all three are still drafts pending legal review, and each one says so at the top. This page is not — everything above describes what the software does today.