<p>OK maybe I am mistaken , but from what I understood in order to apply for financial aid you can no longer send paper financial aid (with no additional cost) and you have to use college board CSS financial aid that costs 9$+16$ per college?!?!?</p>
<p>can someone explain it to me?!</p>
<p>For many colleges, you have to use BOTH, but as far as I know, no one requires ONLY CSS. If your need is high enough, the college board MIGHT give you a waiver.</p>
<p>I mean it is outrageous! you have to pay 9$ for each score report +70$ admission fee, and now for the financial aid you need to pay 25$?!?!? why do I have to use this CSS anyway?</p>
<p>I just submitted my CSS Profile to all 12 colleges, since I had to do it anyways for Early Action, I decided to just submit to all, making it easier. Still, it cost me $201…=[</p>
<p>You know…if you submit the FAFSA, that is free. Some schools require the Profile in addition to the FAFSA. Your choice is to submit it (and pay the fees) or NOT apply for institutional financial aid at those schools. The reality is that if you have financial need, the amount you will probably net from your financial aid award will FAR EXCEED the amount of the applications.</p>
<p>If you are low income enough you will get an automatic fee waiver for a certain number of submissions. (I think it’s around 6, but don’t recall precisely.)</p>
<p>I you’re not low income enough for a fee waiver, then thumper’s absolutely right, that the submission fee will be money very well spent if it brings in some financial aid.</p>
<p>I agree that the fee is meager if you get financial aid.
I just don’t understand why college board has to come between me and my college (and take 25$ on it). why can’t I just send paper forms for free?!</p>
<p>From the College Board website:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So see if you qualify for the waiver. Otherwise, it is what it is, and I’d advise not spending any more emotional energy on it.</p>
<p>The CollegeBoard is very crafty at sniffing out an opportunity. For the colleges, they get the ease of someone else gathering all this information, scanning all those documents, getting the data to the appropriate colleges. Think of all the office work that eliminates. The schools get a tidy e-packet for each FA applicant, they don’t have to take the HelpMe calls, the mailroom doesn’t get all that paper, the office doesn’t have to organize it, enter it, store it, shred it.</p>
<p>For students who need to the submit the CSS Profile to more than one school; you enter all the information once, you copy and send all the supporting documents once.</p>
<p>I understand why it is good for the college but I think it is just rude that college board takes more money from me!!</p>
<p>Welcome to capitalism. They had an opportunity, they took it, and now they are making billions of dollars from it.</p>
<p>lol ido.potter. If you’re outraged at this, just wait till you see your first tuition bill.</p>
<p>LasMa I know the tuition bill :)</p>
<p>the thing is if I am not mistaken until last year you could send in financial aid forms for free, and suddenly you have to pay money to college board?!!?!?!</p>
<p>Hell you don’t pay for common app!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>ido.potter…I hope this makes you feel better. My kid filed the first Profile in 2003. It was NOT FREE THEN. I don’t know if it was free before then because we never did one before then…but I can tell you that there has been a processing and submission fee for the Profile since at least 2003. LAST YEAR you could not submit it for free in any way…nope…not unless you applied for and received a fee waiver.</p>
<p>Are you confusing the Profile with the FAFSA? The FAFSA continues to be free. It can be submitted online or on paper although I have to say…processing time and ease of submission online make that the preferred way to submit. It is free this year…it was free last year. The first “f” in the name stands for FREE.</p>
<p>As pointed out by others…virtually ALL colleges require the FAFSA. Some colleges require the Profile in addition to the FAFSA. You pay for the Profile. FAFSA is free.</p>
<p>Profile…not free and to my knowledge, never has been.</p>
<p>I was talking about
<a href=“Welcome | Student Financial and Administrative Services”>Welcome | Student Financial and Administrative Services;
<a href=“Welcome | Student Financial and Administrative Services”>Welcome | Student Financial and Administrative Services;
<p>for instance</p>
<p>thumper1 thank you for the information!</p>
<p>I have a friend who did not send the supporting documents (1040s,W2s, 1099s, etc) to the CollegeBoard. Her son was only applying ED to one school, so she called the college and asked if she could send those documents directly. They said that was fine.</p>
<p>If he’d not gotten accepted and had to apply to the other schools on his list, I suppose she would have gone back to sending them to the CollegeBoard to process.</p>
<p>Anyway, this did not save her the initial fee to submit the CSS Profile, but I suppose if you were dead-set on not going through the CollegeBoard, you could fill the whole thing out and then print yourself the Applicant Copy and send that in on paper. You’d have to ask the college first though.</p>
<p>It would have “Applicant Copy” faintly printed under the text, but maybe that wouldn’t matter.</p>
<p>I gotta say…if you WANT financial aid from YALE…do the forms and pony up the money. Yale has very generous financial aid. They want to be sure to award it to those who really have financial need. They have a process they have defined. If you want their aid…complete and submit whatever it takes to get it. The bottom line is that the cost of the FORMS is a pittance if you qualify for their very generous need based aid.</p>
<p>If you don’t complete the finaid application forms (and yes, some require a fee) you will NOT receive institutional aid from schools that require these forms. If accepted, you would then face the total cost of attendance to pay (no financial aid) and that cost is WELL IN EXCESS of the cost of these applications.</p>
<p>ido.potter, seriously, how much time and mental energy and emotion are you going to waste on this? You have to pay. It is a VERY small amount. Deal with it.</p>
<p>True. There are application fees, testing fees, fees to get scores sent, and yeah, in the case of the CSS Profile, a financial aid application fee. It’s all part of the process, like just about everything else in life. Pay it. Move on.</p>
<p>LOL ok guys:P thanks</p>