<p>Okay. So, my CSS Profile is done and ready to submit. The majority of all blanks are filled in with a nice "0". One problem - they didn't give me a fee waiver. It's 73 dollars to send it to all my schools. I have NO IDEA why they didn't give it to me. My mother's income is -109500 because of business losses. Last year it was -76989. My father is deceased. While my mother does own her business, it isn't worth anything because of the debt. We really can't pay the fee and I have no idea what to do. Can anyone help?</p>
<p>mine costs up to $105. I guess I'll just call the financial aid office of each college to get a fee waiver, but tomorr. is the deadline............</p>
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I guess I'll just call the financial aid office of each college to get a fee waiver, but tomorr
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<p>You are talking about 2 separate enitities here. The college cannot waive the college board fees. If you need to work something out, then you will have to work it out with the college board.</p>
<p>The best you can do is ask the school, is that you do not have /can't afford the fees if you can send your FA information, directly to them. Some will say yes and others will say no.</p>
<p>keep in mind, that the college board/application fees are just a drop in the bucket when it comes to costs/fees that FA does not cover. What will you do if you have to pay a seat deposit, go to admitted students days, purchase books and other start up items.</p>
<p>If you do not have one, I would suggest getting a part-time job to help off-set some of the costs.</p>
<p>Fee waiver Eligibility</p>
<p>According to College board:</p>
<p>The PROFILE fee waiver program uses the USDA reduced price lunch income
guidelines, based on the CSS Institutional Methodology (IM) definition of total
parent income. This means that parental income includes both taxable and
untaxed income, with the exception of the Earned Income Credit.</p>
<p>Also, assets of under 30K</p>
<p>Here is the link to guidelines for reduced price lunch by family size.</p>
<p>With zero income, you certainly meet the eligibility requirements based on income, but if your mother's business is taking large losses such as you indicated, there must be assets to cover those losses, so you probably don't meet the second part of the criteria for a fee waiver.</p>
<p>I would suggest people read the date something was posted before reviving and giving advice on month old threads.. As in, this was a month and a half ago.
I sucked it up, paid it with my Christmas money, and got into my first choice college. I'm in the process of being made into a "special circumstance" because the CSS Profile IS NOT for people with complicated situations, period.
There WILL be more battles for you if you're being charged for the Profile but can't afford it, because you, unfortunately have some sort of complicated financial situation that cannot be simply spelled out on paper.</p>
<p>Wow......., I suggest you try to ignore someone's "mistake" and be thankful that people are trying to help. I personally clicked on the thread because it had moved to the top of the board. Also, did it ever occur to you that there may be someone else who has a similar question? The responses may be helpful to others.</p>
<p>floee...I think folks might have been responding to the response written by Zebra. That post commented about the fee waiver too. Yours wasn't the only post being responded to.</p>
<p>This information can't be repeated enough as is evidenced by the MULTIPLE threads that have been started on this topic.</p>
<p>Thank goodness folks are responding. You also don't know who is reading the advice but not posting.</p>
<p>Oops, sorry for coming off (very) snappish. I personally hate the CSS Profile and everything associated with it (financial aid makes me want to scream, seriously) and obviously that came off in my typing.
So, sorry, but the Profile is a very bitter memory and sore subject. I didn't mean to be mean and bratty sounding, but apparently that's how I came off and I apologize.</p>
<p>sorry if this is a simple question, but where do you apply for a fee wavier?</p>
<p>When you fill out your information on the CSS profile, when you submit, they determine whether or not you will either receive a fee waiver or if you will be charged a fee.</p>
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I personally hate the CSS Profile and everything associated with it (financial aid makes me want to scream, seriously) and obviously that came off in my typing.
So, sorry, but the Profile is a very bitter memory and sore subject.
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<p>You may feel it is a bitter memory and a sore subject however, you have no problem asking for the school's $$. </p>
<p>IF you need institutional aid, then you need to fill out the forms that they require. You don't have to like the process, but you do have to fill out the forms if you want the $$ from the school. </p>
<p>If you find the process so egregious, and the fees so exhorborant (which is really a drop in the bucket when you consider that you got $$ many times over the fee per school amount you paid) you always have the option of not filling out the forms. But you cannot have it both ways.</p>
<p>sybbie - Because of my mother's business, we have a very complicated financial situation that the CSS Profile did not allow us to account for. I personally believe that computers are not flawless, and it is completely ridiculous to charge a single mother who frequently has roughly $100 dollars total in the bank and who is constantly threatened by loan sharks $76 dollars to apply for financial aid because she owns a failing business. It makes absolutely no sense that I should receive a fee waiver for everything EXCEPT the application for financial aid.
I was perfectly fine collecting the information, putting it in myself, etc, but I literally cried when I learned of the fact that we did not qualify for the fee waiver. It's ridiculous to have to use money you don't actually have to apply for financial aid.
I have no idea what your issue is with me, but please refrain from personally attacking me before you know all the facts.</p>
<p>According to the college board</p>
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<p>The PROFILE service provides fee waivers to students who do not have the means to pay for the application. In an effort to reach as many qualifying students as possible, the
PROFILE fee waiver process is fully automated based on the family and financial information contained in the application. Automation allowed the College Board to double the number of students receiving the fee waiver.</p>
<p>Please note important information about the 2008-2009 PROFILE fee waiver program:</p>
<p>• The PROFILE fee waiver program uses the USDA reduced price lunch income guidelines, based on the CSS Institutional Methodology (IM) definition of total parent income. This means that parental income includes both taxable and
untaxed income, with the exception of the Earned Income Credit. </p>
<p>More information about current Reduced Price Lunch Income guidelines may be found
at Home</a> Page.</p>
<p>• Parent assets are included in the fee waiver eligibility assessment. Dependent students whose parents report net assets in the excess of $ 30,960 are not eligible for the fee waiver.</p>
<p>• The fee waiver covers the initial application and 6 total school reports.</p>
<p>• There is no payment required until the application is submitted. When students reach the Submission page, they will be notified of their charges or their eligibility for a fee waiver. Students may pay for PROFILE using a credit card,
debit card, or an online check.</p>
<p>For more information about PROFILE fees or the automated fee waiver process, please contact <a href="mailto:help@cssprofile.org">help@cssprofile.org</a>.</p>
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<p>Floee, I hope you understand that you WILL be expected to pay something for college, no matter what. You will at least be expected to do work study & take out loans. As for how a college can expect you to pay for the apps ... FAFSA is free. If it's a problem to pay for Profile when you can't get a waiver, there are plenty of FAFSA only schools.</p>
<p>Each time I've completed the CSS Profile for my girls, we automatically qualified for a fee waiver. It's not perfect, may not seem fair, but it is what it is. We have a guidance counselour at their school that exclusively helps with college applications, standardized tests, and financial aid. She offered to look into fee waivers, before filing. I know it's hindsight, but looking into waivers prior to filing is the best course of action.</p>
<p>You cannot qualify for a fee waiver for the CSS if you own a business because the business papers are offsite. Even if you lose more money than everyone who qualifies for the fee waiver makes, you cannot qualify and that is ridiculous. While the automation helps people, you also cannot get around it. I qualify for all other fee waivers by the college board.
I am doing workstudy and I'm taking out all the federal loans I can. My mother cannot cosign for loans because of her financial situation. I do not understand your goal to render my assessment of my own financial situation inadequate.
I've tried to be mature about this, but you're speaking to a seventeen year old girl who had to do this all on her own, so if you guys could give me a break that'd be wonderful.</p>
<p>I think the reason that you are getting some of the responses are </p>
<ol>
<li><p>People were answering a follow up question to give someone other than yourself who is in your situation information.</p></li>
<li><p>You are coming off with a sense of entitlement that you should have gotten fee waivers and that some one owes you something.Then you want to turn around and literally bite the hand that fed you because you do not think you have received enough $$ from the school where you applied EDII.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Keep in mind there are over 3500 colleges in the country. Approximately 250 of them require the profile. If you do the math you will find that there are literally thousands of colleges that do not require the profile. You have chosen to apply to schools that require the profile in order for you to get their money.</p>
<p>The application process is not an 100% free process. Depending on your situation, you are going to have to pay something. If you got free fee waivers for applications, SATs & SATIIs you are in a better position than a lot of other people. If you get through the application process only having to pay $76 then you are in really great shape. Remember no one owes anyone anything in this process.</p>
<p>There are plenty of people whose families do not own businesses, parents who have lost jobs during the process and in far worse situations who do not qualify for fee waivers. Because FA is based on previous years income, some families will not even afford to pay for college for their kids, because they are not eligible for FA. Those students pay the fee or look at other options.</p>
<p>Remember the saying "I complained because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet."</p>
<p>Hope that everything works out for you . If the ED thing does not work out, I hope that you have a financially safety lined up.</p>
<p>I apologize for my actions, but how would you handle this if you were seventeen? I'm sorry, but I'm trying to do this the best I can. I started my financial aid journey with my mom's taxes from the last two years, and that's still what I have sitting on my desk. My mom works too hard to give me the luxury of not having to deal with this, and I do not have a father.
Instead of attacking me for my faults and my mistakes and saying that I just shouldn't have applied to go to my dream school, some constructive criticism would've been nice instead of the personal attacks that I seem to have gotten. I would've loved for people to suggest other routes for me, such as outside scholarships. I do believe I even asked for references to some.
I am very, very sorry that I am not perfect and could not keep up my facade of maturity throughout this discussion, but honestly it made me cry several times. I'm just a kid and I'm not ready to deal with finances yet. I would sell my kidney to go to this school, and obviously I did not portray how I would do anything to go there.</p>
<p>I do not want to be pitied, but that is where I am coming from. Think of me what you want, but you do not know me and I really don't think I'm as horrible of a person as you think I may be.</p>
<p>It is not my intention to make you cry or to hurt your feelings, however, many students go into the process without really doing their due diligence. Some beleive that if they just get accepted that the money is going to automatically come. Often times that is not the case.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>No school is worth selling a kidney or any other organ for.</p></li>
<li><p>Sometimes if your dream school is going to be a financial nightmare, then it is time to dream a new dream.</p></li>
<li><p>If you have a big gap in your FA package, outside scholarships may not help you a lot because they usually reduce aid in this order: self help aid (work study and loans) then the need based FA is reduced. This means your outside scholarship would have to cover your whole FA package before it makes a dent in the EFC.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>If this is not going to be a workable situation, then you have to know when to let go. There is still time to get out of your ED school and apply to other schools that may meet your need.</p>
<p>It seems that you are a very intelligent person, perhaps you will be able to get some merit aid at another school or even get into the honors college with money at your state U. Perhaps you could look atsoem private schools that are in your home state where you may be eligible for state aid in addition to federal aid to reduce some of the costs.</p>
<p>there are still a list of schools that are taking applications:</p>
<p><<my mom="" works="" too="" hard="" to="" give="" me="" the="" luxury="" of="" not="" having="" deal="" with="" this="">></my></p>
<p>Surely your mother has had a few free hours over the past several months to know what was going to be necessary to fill in these forms.</p>
<p>sueinphilly - My mom gets home between six and eight every night and then continues to work on things for the business, every day of the week. If she has to pick me up from rehearsal, she gets someone to cover for an hour, picks me up, drops me off, and then goes back to work. If she ever has a day off, she'll fix things around the house and clean, which we desperately need to happen. She's extremely busy and I don't blame her for that, but it is inconvenient. For the EDII situation, she has now had to start dealing with it at work.</p>
<p>Anyways.. Hopefully the reconsideration will lessen the gap. My school does cover 100% of financial need, and outside scholarships cover loans and workstudy before grants, thankfully.
I did not apply to my state U because of various reasons including an incredible phobia of crowded learning environments.
I may apply to some, but many of them seem unappealing. I did not withdraw any of my applications, and hopefully if I have to withdraw my acceptance from my college, I will be able to receive financial aid from my second choice.. If not, I have no idea.</p>