College made change to FAFSA

Applying to College
1

I got a notification today that a college changed my FAFSA today. The colleges listed on my FAFSA are need blind and I have not heard back from any of them yet. Does that mean one of the colleges admitted me? To my knowledge, these schools don’t look at finances and don’t work to put together a package unless you get in.

2

Admissions and FInAid are separate.

3

Yes, but the financial aid office wouldn’t look at my aid unless admissions told them to. Right?

4

Unlikely. They work independently.

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5

Okay

6

Wrong.

A change to the FA portal or docs is not an indication of an impending admissions offer.

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7

FA is doing work in parallel to admission, so that FA is (at least mostly) ready when admission is done.

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8

But why would the school bother to change my FAFSA information then if they’re going to reject me?

9

The FA office does not wait for admissions to be done to do at least preliminary FA processing for all applicants. If the FA office waits until admissions is done, there may not be enough time to do all of the FA before April.

For example, suppose the application deadline is 1/1 and the decision release date is 4/1. Suppose the timelines are as follows:

  • FA on all applicants takes 2 months.
  • FA on only admitted applicants takes 1 month.

If FA is done on all applicants starting 1/1, then FA is done by 3/1. Admissions has the full three months from 1/1 to 4/1 to decide whom to admit. Once it decides, it matches admits and their FA offers and releases decisions on 4/1.

If FA waits until admissions is done, then admissions has only two months from 1/1 to 3/1 before handing off admits to FA to produce FA offers in time for the 4/1 decision date.

So from an operations research or supply chain standpoint, it makes more sense for FA to work on all applicants in parallel to admissions, rather than waiting for admissions to be done.

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10

Thank you so much! I understand now

11

Ok, but don’t go buy any spirt wear yet. :slight_smile:

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12

Haha I won’t. I understand now that there is likely no correlation. The only thing that means an acceptance is an acceptance letter.