<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>I am at a dilemma here where my parents owe taxes, and as such, will not get their tax return information until MID-MAY (at the earliest...) </p>
<p>Unfortunately, colleges require committing to a college by May 1st, but by that time, I do not even know my financial aid information from any of the colleges (even though they recommend using their calculator. I can't be sure that is accurate, and there are posts giving conflicting information.) </p>
<p>I do know that there is no way my parents can afford my college education, unless we consider loans beyond that from the government (which I would really prefer not to have..)</p>
<p>Would it be ethical, therefore, to commit to more than one college because of this situation? The NACAC states that it might not be if one is still "negotiating financial aid offers with more than one college" but I am not even aware of my financial aid whatsoever (they are public universities and therefore require either the FAFSA data verification or the transcript no matter what)</p>
<p>Thanks for your responses guys, it's greatly appreciated!</p>
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<p>If your parents cannot contribute much to help you with college you probably WILL have the federal direct loans. Did you and or your parents fill out the FAFSA with “will file” box checked? You alone can only receive $5500 for your freshman year in federal direct loans. Are the two schools both FAFSA only schools that you are considering? Have you e-mailed or spoken to either college regarding financial aid and the fact that your parents won’t file their taxes by tomorrow? Have either of the colleges sent you scholarship letters yet?</p>
<p>Thanks for replying! To address your questions:</p>
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<p>Actually, my parents did file their taxes back in February because they knew that they would need the information. </p>
<p>And to add, I understand that I would have that money in governmental loans, but that still would not be enough. I believe I would need to have private, unsubsidized loans if I did not receive enough aid from grants.</p>
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Yes. They do not use the CSS profile/IDOC (which I also have done, btw)</p>
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<p>Yes, I have. They state that I should just use the calculator, because I have no other alternative…</p>
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<p>You mean for merit-based? Yes, but it’s nowhere near enough ($250, if you really wanted to know…)</p>
<p>If you’re talking about the financial aid letter, no, they can’t give me one unless I give them an IRS transcript…</p>
<p>You can ask each of your colleges for an extension of the reply date based on not having your full financial aid package yet. Give them the most likely date by which your parents’ tax situation should be resolved. If they can’t extend the reply date for you, then do consider multiple deposits. Your situation is one in which this is not an abuse of the system.</p>
<p>Yes it is unethical to commit to two colleges. In addition to really NOT making a definitive commitment yourself, you are also taking a spot in one school that could be offered to someone else.</p>
<p>In your first post you say your parents can’t complete their taxes until mid May. Then in a subsequent post you say they completed them in February. Which is it?</p>
<p>Regardless, as harsh as this sounds, it is not the fault of the colleges that you have not gotten your materials to them in time to formulate an aid package.</p>
<p>The only way to reconcile this is to call the schools this week. If there are TRULY extenuating circumstances that prevent your parents from being able to complete the info AND you can document these, the schools might be able to help you out. If it is just that this didn’t get done (or did it…your posts are conflicting), then you may have to either go to an affordable option without aid, or take a gap year and reapply next year…planing to get everything done in a timely fashion.</p>
<p>Hello everyone,</p>
<p>My parents DID complete their IRS return during February, but because they owe taxes, the IRS return information will not be available until mid-May.</p>
<p>My parents called the IRS to verify this, and they did collaborate this information. You can also see this PDF by a college’s financial aid department (not the one I applied to though) here: <a href=“Office of Student Financial Aid – UW–Madison”>Office of Student Financial Aid – UW–Madison;
<p>It states:</p>
<p>“When a tax filer who - Has an amount owed and subsequent to submitting their tax return to the IRS, pays the full amount due - … In most cases, Data Retrieval is available and a Tax Return Transcript may be requested within 3 - 4 weeks after the full payment is made.”</p>
<p>So because we did not realize that we would need to have paid the taxes in advance, we are stuck with the IRS only being available by mid-May. My parents paid their taxes a month ago, but IRS data verification still is not available. They only did pay their taxes early because I had found that link above.</p>
<p>To add, my parents are self employed so they would not have been able to pay their taxes in advance… it just happens that we are in this -one in a million- situation where we cannot get an IRS return transcript until they process it.</p>
<p>If your parents filed electronically, you may consider sending a copy of the return along with the filing accepted notice for the IRS. We have done this for 2 schools that required verification. For FAFSA you can update manually.
Hope this helps.</p>
<p>That wouldn’t work, unfortunately. We asked about that also, but the advisor explicitly stated that they could only accept an IRS return transcript or the IRS data verification from the FAFSA.</p>
<p>Back to the issue at hand, is there any other opinions/definitive conclusions about my situation? I honestly would prefer not to commit to two, but I truly feel that it’s worse I would be forced to take a gap year or go to community college instead.</p>
<p>I am confused.</p>
<p>We filed taxes but have not yet paid (check goes out tomorrow 
). We got financial aid packages from all schools. We were selected for verification and some schools requested the tax transcript but not before they gave us the FA package. In fact, no one wanted verification documents unless my son was 1.accepted 2. committed and paid the deposit. </p>
<p>So are you saying the colleges HAVE all your information CSS/FAFSA/IDOC and refused to give you a package or even a proposed package?</p>
<p>OP, if you don’t get any aid other than the federal direct loans can your parents afford either of the colleges? To commit generally you have to pay a deposit so either way, if you commit to 2, which is highly discouraged, you will end up forfeiting one of the deposits. Generally the deposits are not (sorry edited to add a missed word) huge, but it’s still money that will be forfeited at the college you ultimately withdraw from.</p>
<p>I find it hard to believe that you do not have a financial aid letter from ANY of your colleges with a caveat that the final amounts will depend upon actual amounts upon verification. The schools will not release funds without verification, but they give out awards based on what you have sent them in every case I know.</p>
<p>Our FAFSA can’t be verified yet either because when my husband filed the taxes, he set it up for the money we owe to be withdrawn from our bank account on April 15th. I didn’t realize he was going to do that, and he didn’t realize that it would prevent our taxes from “officially” being filed for verification purposes. We used the tax form information, though, to fill out the FAFSA, and we got estimated financial aid packages from all of the schools S was accepted to. </p>
<p>All of your schools are saying they won’t give you an estimated package based on the tax return your parents filed???</p>
<p>cpt, we are missing a finaid letter from a out of state public. All the paperwork was filed early and data retrieval was done with FAFSA. They keep telling me they won’t release any financial aid info (federal, scholarship or otherwise) until my son deposits. I personally sent a note to admissions last week and told them this was a terrible policy (in more words than that). Admission has been great, reminding my son about scholarship deadlines, verifying that all his application info was in, that his finaid info was great. Great communications from admissions. It’s a pity financial aid has that policy.</p>
<p>So everyone, I have gotten private colleges’ estimated aid, but not from any of the public universities, which are bound by regulations not to give any until they receive irs information (?) right?</p>
<p>I mean to be clear, I’ve gotten Santa Clara University’s and Occidental’s, but not any of the [UCs or University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign] <- does not use IDOC.</p>
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<p>Wrong. All schools should give you at least a tentative FA award if your FA materials (FAFSA and anything else that was required) were submitted in a timely fashion . . . unless you are selected for verification, in which case, very rarely, some schools will delay the award letter until verification is received.</p>
<p>Notification of Cal Grants is generally not delayed pending verification. Your award information be posted on the California Student Aid Commission [url=<a href=“CSAC - Student Landing Home”>CSAC - Student Landing Home]website[/url</a>].</p>
<p>Yes, you are right, I was selected for verification (sorry, forgot to mention this part). And I have also been accepted for Cal Grant A, but University of Illinois is in Illinois, NOT California so…</p>
<p>But my question still stands, on the ethics of committing to more than one college… I’ve gotten on yea, and one nea…</p>
<p>So, if you’ve got confirmation on Cal Grant A, then the only school you haven’t heard from is Illinois. Ask them for an extension. But since you’re out of state, and they don’t meet need, I’m not sure what you’re expecting. I can’t imagine the net price calculator gave you a very favorable estimate . . .</p>
<p>But if you really want to deposit to more than one state university, I can’t see where it’s going to matter. I just can’t imagine that a state university has the resources (or the interest) to check up on things like that.</p>
<p>Most schools will give you a tentative award pending verification. That said, I can see how a large state school does not have the time to do even that.</p>
<p>If you are saying accepting to both large state schools, then that’s probably ok. Large state schools have huge melts, and you would be just one more student withdrawing before matriculation. If they don’t have time to process tentative Financial Aid, then they don’t have time to investigate kids who don’t matriculate. I wouldn’t risk it if the schools were Harvard and Yale.</p>
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<p>Are you saying that a school will not release the financial aid package until your son makes an ADMISSIONS deposit? If so, that’s crazy and wrong - talk about putting the cart before the horse. Which school is this?</p>
<p>OP, have you asked the schools for extensions? That’s what I would do. And FWIW, I wouldn’t hold out hope for a good financial package from UIUC.</p>
<p>The problem with your approach is that seat deposits are non-refundable and at some schools, very expensive. You would be tossing a lot of money (there are a couple of schools who have seat deposits that are over $1k). You are not getting this money back should you decide not to attend. The reason behind the high seat deposit fees is to discourage exactly what you are suggesting.</p>
<p>I agree with other as an OOS student, Illinois is probably not going to give you the aid you need, so you should eliminate this off the bat. They are also asking for a $150 seat deposit (which IMHO, should remain in your pocket)</p>
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<p>For many FAFSA only schools, you already have a good idea as to whether you are eligible for federal aid just by looking at your SAR (as it will tell you if you are Pell grant Eligible and will tell you how much you are eligible for in direct loans).</p>
<p>I was on the phone with a number of schools last week, who will not give students financial aid packages until they complete the process (IRS data retrieval or transcript, completed verification forms, etc.) There were a couple of schools that stated they would not send out a finalized package until the student commits (quite a few in the SUNY system, who did not do this last year). However, they did send out tentative packages subject to verification.</p>