<p>My child was accepted to one of his college choices a month ago and since we are new to this process, we thought that we would receive the financial aid package sometime soon. Just today he received an e-mail stating that we missed the priority deadline (which we did not) and that the FAFSA and state financial aid documents need to be completed.</p>
<p>Would this be a FAFSA issue; i.e. we need to contact them? Does this happen frequently and if so, what action needs to be taken to ensure that the college knows that we met the deadlines and to ensure that they receive these documents quickly? Thanks for any insights.</p>
<p>Did you see the page with your EFC and the graduation rates of the schools you sent the FAFSA info to? Did you receive email confirmation when you submitted the FAFSA? Did you get the email a bit later with a link to your SAR?</p>
<p>(I’m trying to isolate the stage in the process where something went wrong)</p>
<p>Yes, it is listed on the FAFSA report itself and on the SAR report too. And it was included on the graduation rate page as well. I had my son contact the financial aid officer at this school to ask about the situation, however does this still mean that he’s been locked out of priority financial aid consideration? Is this a situation whereby it doesn’t matter where the error happened – they still consider him as late?</p>
<p>I don’t know of any laws that would decide that, so it would be up to the school to set policy. Since you got the SAR info, the error would either be at a late stage of processing by the feds or at the school’s end. My money’s on the school, in which case they’ll probably be very apologetic once this is straightened out and not penalize you.</p>
<p>The first thing to do is to call them and see what they say. It could be as simple as sending the email by mistake. If they really don’t show any record of receiving the SAR, you may have to have it resent to them, in which case they’ll see the date of original submission.</p>
<p>Oh, one more thing to check. You did enter the school’s ID correctly when you submitted the FAFSA, right? And that school was in the list of schools with graduation rate, etc. at the end?</p>
<p>You can call the FAFSA people and ask when they sent the information to the college. Then call the FA people at the college and make a stink about it. The odds are the college people have lost/misplaced/overlooked the information–assuming the other colleges on your lists have acknowledged receipt of the FAFSA. (Protip: It pays to e-mail each college’s FA department and confirm that they do in fact have the info.)</p>
<p>The college can call the FAFSA people to have the information resent to them.</p>
<p>At most schools a “priority” deadline is an earlier deadline than their drop dead deadline date. Does this school have a regular deadline date also?</p>
<p>Maybe this is a bad idea…but why not just submit the FAFSA to them again? You can go into the FAFSA website…delete all the other schools and then submit it again.</p>
<p>Of course…you might want to contact the OTHER schools to see if they got the FAFSA!</p>
<p>Any chance you submitted to more than 10 schools? If so, perhaps this school was in the first batch and wasn’t processed before you added schools…just a thought.</p>
<p>Also…check everything on that FAFSA (I hope you have printed copies of it). If there is anything “different”…name, SS number, address, etc…that is not consistent with your kiddo’s college application, this might mean they put your kid’s FAFSA elsewhere.</p>
<p>Also…if you have a very common last name or full name, it might have been misfiled.</p>
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<p>Definitely a good idea. I knew something was up when every school said they’d received the FAFSA but one.</p>
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<p>It may not make a difference . . . The school I was having problems with actually HAD received two copies of the FAFSA (according to the FAFSA people)–the original and a version I’d done corrections on after finishing my taxes. And they had plenty of time to receive it (over a month and a half for the first version.)</p>