Sounds like this is a common problem-not sure why they decided to do this in May rather than wait until during the summer after most/all people have gotten their f. aid more settled.
At any rate, I told my friend to call UCSD’s f. aid office and talk with them about the problem. F. aid offices are pretty good and no doubt are used to dealing with FAFSA issues.
There would never be a good time for the fafsa folks to make this change. There are students filing the fafsa,mane changing the fafsa 12 months of the year.
My daughter changed hers and it didn’t take much time…at all…like ten minutes. I will do mine this fall in case I need it for filing the fafsa in 2016.
Update: I got one child’s new ID, verified on the first try. That let us get into her FAFSA and use the DRT. My ID still showed as rejected by SSA, and I reviewed it and did find two numbers in my birthdate transposed, so I’ve resubmitted. My other DD is still a reject and so it won’t let us into her filing to do the DRT. I think her issue may be that she has a double first name, with a space, and SSA might be using that as a middle initial; everything we’ve ever filled out has used her entire name and never been an issue.
OP, suggest to your friend that she go into “edit ID” and see if she can spot transposed numbers, a misspelling, or any other error. I also think my child with the bad ID may have used a different email. We’re going to try again when she gets home tonight.
any suggestions for this situation:
Son is now out of the country, so I’m doing some research for him with my cc friends:
Which address will the feds/ssa want to see/match on the new (improved???) security portal?
The address is not relevant for FSA ID.
The FSA ID will be used not just for FAFSA, but for anything the student does later on www.studentloans.gov (exit counseling, applying for income driven repayment, applying for loan consolidation, using repayment estimator, etc). It is critical that the son makes sure he writes down his password and his security questions/answers.
He will need to set up his FSA ID using a SSN, which is checked against the federal databases. He will need an email address that is not shared by anyone else getting an FSA ID. When he applies for the FSA ID, he will have to respond to an email within a short period of time … this is a very important step in completing the FSA ID process.
No one should create an FSA ID for anyone else. This has created multiple user issues, and FSA has said over and over again in its listserv for technical issues that no one may create another’s FSA ID, and no one may use another’s FSA ID.
Both my Ds FSAID have been verified and matched. So that’s a good thing.
Under the FAQs, it says that parent’s need their own FSAID so I created one but when I tried to link my FAFSA PIN, it couldn’t verify so now I’m waiting three days for SSA verification. They say I will receive an email when this is completed. Good thing we are done with our FAFSA stuff…
My 3 days turned into almost 2 weeks. I had reversed my year of birth but it on of those things that you can glance right over. My daughter then took more than 2 weeks. She entered her SSN wrong, and it is *** ** 1234 so I didn’t know that was the problem. We tried her name different ways, her middle initial different ways. I carefully looked at the address to make sure it said Way and not Street. Really is a pain when we knew the PIN from last year.
^ @twoinanddone I just got my SSA verification email today, 24 hours after I submitted it for verification. So I guess it all went smoothly for me and my two Ds. However, I do not understand why they couldn’t link my PIN, nor could they link both my Ds PINS–seems like something is wrong with their system, since we all have had our PINS set up for a few years now.
I don’t know. I tried to do mine first and it didn’t ask for PIN, so waited the 3 days, came back rejected, did it again. Then DD#2 was available to do hers, so she tried, big mess (some of it her fault) but it didn’t ask for PIN. DD#1 is away for the summer and she told me to do hers, no problem, asked for PIN on the second page, I put it in, got into her FAFSA we’d earlier filed, and once I got in and used the DRT for her, it then let me link my PIN and even told me I was not year cleared with SSA but it let me use the DRT. All excited, I tried other daughter. Nope. We had to wait till hers cleared. Hers never asked for the PIN.
It’s a little less than seemless.
Twoinanddone, when you did your daughter’s, did you have access to her email? That’s the problem I would have if I tried to do my oldest son’s–I don’t have access to his email. I could do my son’s who is still at home on a gap year.
For the DD who is away, it accepted her PIN from before so it was no problem. For me, the first time I tried it sent me some code I had to put in to my email, but of course I was on my own email. For the other DD, she was with me when we first tried, but then went out of town so she had her email and texted me if I needed anything. I don’t think I did. Once she was cleared by SSA, I could just use her email and password, which we had set up, to get in to do the DRT.
Yes, if you are setting it up for your kid (read: not supposed to, but if you are), you need to access their email because that is where they send a verification code. My D is away at an internship this summer so I told her to forward me the email with the code. To my understanding, the code is to verify email so when you log in to FAFSA you can use your email address and not have to set up a user ID, which is just another thing to remember.
The system has changed. At first, it linked with a PIN. Now, it doesn’t seem to be doing that. I had to amend my instructions to students on how to establish their FSA IDs.
D and I just created our FSA IDs tonight. In both our cases, it linked our PINs, then sent an email with a verification code to be entered. The verification code was the last step. Everything worked well - I was able to login and edit D’s FAFSA but then the IRS Data Retrieval tool failed when I tried to import our tax data. Ugh - always something…
This has not been the smooth, straightforward process they had promised.
DD already did hers. I need to do mine.
I don’t need to get into a fafsa to amend or anything right now…I just need to deal with this new log in.
What is the process for me, the parent only.
First, get a large glass of wine ready…
Seriously, go to fafsa.gov, click on the FSA ID icon on the top and follow the directions. It took me a couple minutes and there were no problems. At least a couple posts in this thread mention users having made mistakes along the way. Just don’t make any mistakes.
I know when we did the PIN signup and FAFSA back in January we were supposed to enter name and social sec number exactly like listed on the soc sec card so I made sure I had them in front of me.
I will have to sit down with D this summer before she leaves to make sure things go smoothly to set up these new FSA IDs.
How are you dealing with your student being away when taxes and FAFSA need to be filed?
D has Christmas break until the beginning of January, but I won’t have W2s by then yet.
They have a March break, but FA deadline at school is March 1.
I have no idea where my SS card even is…but I have a statement that has my name on it. I’m hoping that is how it appears on my actual card.