I’m a first generation student, and have little prior knowledge about applying for college/financial aid. I just recently found out about the CSS Profile, but I’m honestly confused, and I know I should’ve waited before submitting it to some schools. I still haven’t submitted to my ED school, but the deadline is creeping up. Anyways, here’s my issue:
I havent submitted the CSS for the school I’m planning to ED, I’ll probably do it today, but is there a way to edit the CSS?
For reference, my EFC is $0, with a household income of around $20K(3 in household), both of my parents are self-employed, and we have no “extra” assets, other than a house valued/bought at around $100K, that we still owe around $80K. Because of this, I think I would probably be eligible for almost, if not all, the need-based aid that would be available, but I’m not sure if this might have messed that up.
How would I fix it in that case, would sending in actual IRS forms help, or would I have to contact the school directly?
The deadline to apply and have all financial aid documents in is November 15, what do I do?
To look at it from a strictly literal point of view, a Pell grant is not institutional money; it comes from the federal government without regard to which school you are attending. In any event, there’s no reason to worry about this. The school’s financial aid office will know the amount of Pell grant that you are entitled to, and that will be factored into the calculation for awarding institutional need-based aid.
@thumper1 I’m not entirely sure, what I do know is that we make less than $20K a year, i checked the CSS Profile and it says wages were around $5K, buisiness income(and loss?) was around $15K, with adjusted gross income being $13K. We paid nothing in federal tax, bur $2000 in “self-employment” tax.
@suzy100 I can’t find the edit button, what I meant is that I HAVE submitted to 8 schools to “fill-out” my CSS Profile waiver(I know, that’s stupid I thought you could edit/swap out schools at later times) but I would need to “resend/resubmit” to my planned ED school by adding them to the CSS, or sendning it to them, not sure.
Would I even be able to edit it in that case? I see that I can change the “additional info” section, but I can’t change any of the info about income or assets, just see them.
@BelknapPoint Yeah that was my mindset when I sent it, since it would technically be “non-institutional”, but now that I’m seeing it, it might seem like it’s an outside scholarship, since they would already take federal grants into account as part of their aid package, no?
A Pell grant is an outside scholarship. They know about it. They’ll figure everything out.
Once you finalize the Profile and submit it, there is no way to go online and change the information. You can, however, always send the completed Profile to additional schools. The College Board is happy to take more of your money in order to send your Profile to more schools.
I don’t think you can make any changes after it’s been submitted to any school. My D/we had a small mistake and I inquired about this. However, you can contact the schools that require the profile and see how they want to handle it. For us, I was told to send an email with a correction to the FA office, with D’s DOB, SSN, and CB#.
I don’t think you can change it for schools who you add, either.
@BelknapPoint Ok, that’s a relief then, I just checked again and I think it was the only possible issue. And they do love to take your money even after requesting a fee-waiver…
@thumper1 Yeah I thought you could submit another, but it’s a shame it’s not like FAFSA, in that they allow FREE submission and editing. What a deal.
And I can’t seem to be able to make any changes to my profile. Hmm
@suzy100 Hmm, would you suggest submitting the CSS to my ED school immediately then, and also immediately telling them about a possible correction (the federal grant scholarship?), or just wait until I get my financial aid award letter, and assume they’ll figure it out?
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entirely sure, what I do know is that we make less than $20K a year, i checked the CSS Profile and it says wages were around $5K, buisiness income(and loss?) was around $15K, with adjusted gross income being $13K. We paid nothing in federal tax, bur $2000 in “self-employment” tax.
@mom2collegekids My father is a handyman, so he sees a lot of flow of money, through buying expensive materials(such as marble, plumbing, and other high-end furnishing for upper-class people), and is “reimbursed” for them.
Basically, he only ends up with a small fraction of the money that comes in, since the rest is needed to pay for the materials, if that makes any sense.