<p>We will not qualify for financial aid (pretty sure) so S put "will not apply for financial aid on his applications. However, H is not convinced so I want to do a FAFSA to show him and also one school may give merit when you show that you don't qualify for financial aid. Can we submit a FAFSA just to see what our estimated contribution would be for each school without actually "applying" for financial aid?</p>
<p>I think so.</p>
<p>Some people do FAFSA just for scholarship consideration and/or to apply for Stafford loans.</p>
<p>Yes, you can do that. The FAFSA will be sent to whatever schools you list on it. If you really don’t want them to get it you could just put down the code number of a local cc, I guess, that your child won’t be attending anyway. I’m not sure if the FAFSA would process if you didn’t list any schools to receive it.</p>
<p>Or you can just have it sent to the schools he is applying to. You could call them and ask them if that will confuse their admission/financial aid process at all, since he is not actually applying for financial aid.</p>
<p>Just for filing your son will be eligible for an unsubsidized Stafford loan (up to about $5000 for freshmen) regardless of your income/assets. Some people file it who aren’t otherwise receiving any aid just for this purpose.</p>
<p>thanks. I may call a school about this. I understood that for some schools not applying for aid may be a slight help if you are on the waiting list so I didn’t want to hurt the odds applying when we knew we would not qualify for aid. However, other schools do ask that you fill it out so that if they give you a merit scholarship they take need into consideration. Also ok with this…seems fair…you may get a token $500 or $1,000 for a merit award if you have no financial need but every $ helps and gives kid a sense of responsibility to keep up those grades or lose the scholarship.</p>
<p>If you just want to “see” what your estimated EFC will be…why not just use one of the EFC calculators?</p>