My son wants to take a gap year while I was hoping he doesn’t. Now, I’m really going to encourage him to take a gap year!!
What about the opportunity cost for your son of entering the work force one year later due to the gap year as compared to the additional financial aid received by not having 2015 considered in institutional EFC?
That must be one heck of an increase in income to make it worth putting off employment for a year.
Then it won’t matter one bit. You still might submit Fafsa/CSS this year with 2015 data, but it will have no bearing on the award you get for school year 2018-2019, when he starts as a freshman, after gap year. You will have submitted your 2016 data for the financial aid award for 2018-19. If he takes a gap year, and if your windfall is already spent, then your windfall will be irrelevant to FA determination.
If your son doesn’t start college until 2018-2019, you will be submitting the Profile and fafsa in October 2017 using 2016 data.
But if you even think he will be starting college in 2017 fall, you need to contact the colleges ASAP to ask for special consideration. But as noted by others…this might be granted…and it might not be. Even for schools like Harvard that do this…it is handled on a case by case basis. There are no guarantees your extra income for that 2015 year will be ignored by the financial aid department.
I’m confused whether this is a gap, with applications a year from now, including for aid, or he applied to some already and you think that, upon acceptance, he will ask for a deferral.
Agree that ignoring the windfall is by no means assured. There’s a reason the CSS asks all those intrusive questions. In part, to see your discretionary choices, how you choose to spend what you have…
Unless other posts are not accurate, the OP’s son applied to Harvard SCEA. The son has indicated that he wants to take a gap year.
To be honest, this would solve the 2015 high income issue, but as @Madison85 points out…it would also delay entry into the workforce by a year.
Yes, my son just submitted to Harvard SCEA. His desire to take a gap year is purely from the fact that he’s rather burnt out from having led what he called a “double life” of a serious musician and a serious student. There have been so many things that he wanted to do all these years but weren’t able to because he had no room for these in his double life. During the gap year, he wants to totally immerse in these activities and indulge himself, and I don’t blame him a bit. His decision was made long before we even thought about applying SCEA and it had no bearing on the current discussion of the “atypical 2015 financial” situation.
Actually, if he gets accepted at Harvard, he would be asking to defer his admission for the year.
It sounds like this is thought out…and it could have some benefit for your son…as well as for you.