I was under the understanding that after you filled out the CSS profile it would generate an email link to upload you tax files to each school. I think it was called a IDOS? or something just letters. I have not received an email link yet. How long does it take. I would say it is at least a week.
Google “College Board IDOC” and it will take you to the page. But the College Board should contact you as to whether or not your schools require the IDOC.
Not really. The best, most accurate and timely way to figure out what additional steps you need to take in the financial aid application process is to look at the list of requirements on every school’s FA web page. That’s where you will be able to see what is required and how to get the information to the school. Schools that use IDOC to process tax returns and other documents will tell you on their website. Schools that use some other method to process tax returns and other required documents will likewise tell you this information via their website. And the deadlines will all be listed as well (very important).
Hijacking this thread a little, I just submitted the CSS for my daughter and it let me know right on the submission confirmation page that I needed to send tax forms to one of the two schools I was sending it to. So now I need to wait and have my daughter give me her id or get an id for that school if she doesn’t have it yet. But what I am wondering, worrying about, actually, is all this private information on my tax forms getting in the wrong hands. Our identities were stolen earlier in the year and someone tried to file taxes with our information. Can we make copies of our forms and black out parts of our ss numbers or is that something we just need to trust the schools with? I hate that all that sensitive information is going all over the place. I haven’t actually investigated how these forms get in the schools hands yet, that is my next online search…
Are you being told how the tax forms need to be transmitted to the school(s)?
Well, if you don’t want to go through each school’s website (my nephew, for example, applied to 14 colleges, so that would have been time consuming), the College Board does notify you. Below is a quote from their web page:
“IDOC is only available to students that participating colleges and programs select and the College Board notifies for participation. Do not enter the site unless the College Board notified you that at least one of your colleges or programs participates in the IDOC Service.”
https://idoc.collegeboard.org/idoc/
A student who is applying for institutional financial aid and not checking the FA web page of the college for requirements and deadlines is committing malpractice, in my opinion. A spreadsheet can be very helpful in this case.
If the college wants tax forms submitted but does not use IDOC, will the College Board alert your to this, and tell you how to submit the requested forms?
Love the spreadsheet idea. Plan for tomorrow after work. Ps After I submitted form, it never said anything about taxes only when looking at a schools FA page.
No, CSS did not tell me how to submit the tax forms to the school. It just said to submit them directly to the schools.
We used a shared google sheet last year to track all college deadlines, FA and applications. NPC data on another tab. Now tracking actual expenses. Use tech to your advantage.
The particular school that I need to send the tax forms to says their preferred method to receive documents is via fax. It doesn’t give any really great directions for how to link the documents to your kids’ application. I hope when she gets a log in it will give her more information.
With a fax submission, at the very least the personal information already on the tax forms may allow the FA staff to associate the forms with a FAFSA/Profile and begin processing everything. But the best advice is to make sure the student/applicant name is on a cover sheet and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to put student identifying data on every page that is faxed. The bottom line, as you point out, is to look for specific directions from the school.