<p>OK…could you please put the facts in ONE post here. First you said no taxes had been filed. Then you said taxes HAD been filed. Then you said you had NO financial aid packages. NOW you say you have some but not others.</p>
<p>OOS public universities typically do NOT give significant institutional need based aid to NON residents. If it were me, and I was you, I would not bet on seeing significant money from UIUC as an OOS student.</p>
<p>You have several schools from which to choose. I have a SCU grad in this family and as Sybbie noted, the deposit is sizable there, plus you also have to do a housing deposit there.</p>
<p>You HAVE aid packages tentative from several schools. Are these unaffordable? Or have you decided not to attend?</p>
<p>Sit down and look at the estimated offers you have. Since verification is going to likely be fine, you can pretty much go with them. I agree that UIUC isn’t anything to hold your breath on. </p>
<p>As for committing to more than one school, you have to look at the applications and agreements that you signed when applied to them. I believe that the common application, for example, does specify that you are agreeing to be enrolled with deposit at one school at a time. Some other schools may not have such stipulations. How strictly that is enforced is up in the air. Some schools specifically state on the form where you accept admittance and send out the deposit that if they catch you double enrolling, your offers to such schools will be rescinded. CMU is a specific exception.</p>
<p>So, at this point the only missing FA package is Illinois, which, as noted repeatedly, will likely NOT give enough aid to this OOS student to make attendance affordable.</p>
<p>If the OP is still waiting to see a full FA package from one of the UC’s, I’d suggest editing your FAFSA to move that school to the top of the list. It has been reported here that at least one California state school refused to release a student’s award before it was moved to the top of the list. Don’t know if moving it will help. but it can’t hurt!</p>
<p>How does IL compare using the calculator? What did the calculator say? I’m guessing the final award will not be anymore generous. If that is what you are hoping for, then I would drop them off the list.</p>
<p>What part of this states that my parents DID NOT submit taxes? I explicitly stated that they owe taxes (after they completed the return process,) along with the facet that I stated that they would not get their tax return information (perhaps I should have stated transcript, but…)</p>
<p>But it’s nice to note about the converging statements about Illinois not going to offer a lot of financial aid as a consensus-- I’ll have to factor that in.</p>
<p>In terms of UCs, I’m waitlisted for one, so I can see how I won’t receive any financial aid information for that, but I’m still unsure why the others have not informed me of my situation; I thought the reason was similar to that of Illinois, but I suppose I have to look deeper.</p>
<p>The problem with this is because your parents owe taxes, if they have not paid them yet, you will not be able to used the IRS data retrieval system to upload your information into the FAFSA. many schools now will not give you a package until this is done or until you are able to send in a transcript (which willnot be available until later).</p>
<p>when you said “will not get their tax return information”. That statement implies you do not have their “information”, which means the return has not yet been prepared. What you meant to say is: The IRS transcript or FAFSA upload will not be available until mid-may.</p>
<p>The “tax return information” is available, it is just not available from the IRS to give to the school for verification. Big difference.</p>
<p>As originally stated, the typical situation is: Something about your parent’s return cannot be completed before mid-May, and they will not “get” the tax return information from an accountant until then. A lot of people file for extensions until August, and do not have tax returns by April 15. That is the typical situation and the normal interpretation of your original statement.</p>
<p>^ If OP’s parents have not paid taxes, then she will be unable to retrieve any information until approximately 2 weeks after taxes have been paid.</p>
<p>Momofthreecollegekids, it appears that some schools are using this tactic of refusing to release financial aid information until AFTER the payment of an enrollment fee, as Sybbie has brought up some such situations too. Though I feel it is unethical as do many of us, those who are in this situation have to make a decision as to what to do. </p>
<p>The problem is that the Common application stipulates that only one deposit should be made and this is something that is signed. But some schools do not use this app and are not bound by any agreements in them. It appears that that the issue occurs with state schools, and there are other issues as well with some such schools that are not on common ground with a number of schools.</p>
<p>As responsible and ethical adults on this board, all any of us can do is to go over the facts of the situation and leave it as a decision of each person having this issue. If the school is truly one that the student wants and the financial aid package is what is preventing a decision, then parent and student have to decide if they want to put send enrollment commitments and checks to the school that is currently the best choice with the information at hand, and that school that is holding out. It could be that more than one school is doing this in which case multiple schools may be involved. </p>
<p>No advice from here. Gotta be your own decisions. I’m sorry schools are putting those of you in this position into a place where such choices and such payments might be made. I could make a lot of comments but none of them would be helpful and they might not be true either. Easy to say, but I like to try to stick to the truth and the truth of all of this is simply that the process is not perfect. </p>
<p>My cousin was in tough position a few years ago when her son was waitlisted at the school where he was accepted for his ROTC scholarship. The enrollment fee was just too much for chance acceptance and the fact that her son needed to get ROTC and college placement lined up was too important for her to fool around, so the scholarship was moved to the next choice school, and thankfully there was a spot there to do this, and that was where he sent his enrollment commitment and a deposits. Then, a week later, the first choice school accepted the young man, but the ROTC spot was no longer available. THus he lost his first choice school. That’s the way it works sometimes, but I can tell you that it does give me a bitter taste in the mouth. </p>
<p>So good luck to all whatever you decide you are going to do.</p>
<p>You should do your FAFSA with estimated information. Or use the tax info from the year before until this years is done, if you think they would likely be close.</p>
<p>undecided2014 - The OP has already submitted FAFSA (a long time ago). The problem is that the schools are demanding to see his parents’ 2012 tax return before they tell him what his financial aid award will be. And he can’t just send a copy of the tax return (even though it was also filed a long time ago) - he needs authenticated data directly from the IRS. And that won’t be available for another month - and there’s NOTHING he can do to speed that up!</p>