<p>Besides using the legitimate sites, FAFSA.gov and collegeboard.com for the CSS Profile and applying for your FAFSA PINs (parent and student), do you have any other first timer tips?</p>
<p>Do most people fill out the forms first then send in the corrected tax info later?</p>
<p>I see most colleges encourage the forms to be turned in around 15 February.</p>
<p>Thank you for starting this thread, OP. I don’t have any answers (DS Class of 2015 is our first to go through this process), but hopefully we will have others chiming in soon with tips for us!</p>
<p>Importantly, I believe students & parents should be applying for their Federal Student Aid PINS <em>now</em> - so that the PINS will be “live” by Jan 1 so FAFSA can be filed. I requested a pin for DS + one for DH/me at www dot pin dot edu dot gov</p>
<p>How long does it take to get a PIN? And do you apply on the FAFSA website?</p>
<p>There is a thread started on the pin already
<a href=“First time FAFSA filers: Get your PIN! (and a warning) - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>First time FAFSA filers: Get your PIN! (and a warning) - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums;
<p>It took me three days to get confirmation back on each of our PINs. I found the free PDF online super helpful with lots of tips going step by step thru the FAFSA…let me see if I have the link on this computer.</p>
<p>This same book selling on amazon for $10 but here free <a href=“https://www.edvisors.com/media/files/fafsa-book/filing-the-fafsa-2015-2016-edition.pdf”>https://www.edvisors.com/media/files/fafsa-book/filing-the-fafsa-2015-2016-edition.pdf</a></p>
<p>And that is this year’s edition.</p>
<p>And there’s a whole page on what order you should list your schools you are sending the report to…my goodness there is sure a lot of thought going into this stuff!</p>