my sister filled out the free/reduced lunch form last year (2018) and we managed to have free lunch. we also got a SAT fee waiver.
but as I’m filling out CSS, I don’t know how we got free or reduced lunch - our income is a good amount (AGI is about 121k for 6 (would be 7 but my older sister is listed as independent). idk what my sister did when filling the free/reduced lunch form. CSS is asking if I had free/reduced lunch last year - im guessing to see if we qualify for fee waiver? but I got a SAT fee waiver but idk what colleges would think when looking at our income. if I say that I didn’t get free/reduced lunch for 2019, what if the fee waiver pops up because I used the SAT fee waiver?
I don’t know what to do. I do not want to get in trouble. but I do have a lot of schools for CSS so the cost would add up.
I didn’t put that I had free or reduced lunch. However it gave me a fee waiver for my CSS based on the information that I provided. How is this possible? Is it because I had the SAT fee waiver? Will they follow up? Sorry if I sound desperate…I just don’t want to get my family into any trouble because of my sisters mistake filling out the form last year. I didn’t know that this would catch up to me like this.
I thought an adult had to fill out the free/reduced lunch form. Regardless, your sister either didn’t know what she was doing or committed fraud. I’m wondering how these forms are verified. If they aren’t, then I imagine there is a lot of fraud going on. Your family’s income exceeded the limit to receive free/reduced lunch by QUITE a bit! Here’s last year’s income qualification chart for NJ:
Your parents must have known that you were receiving free lunch. And they thought it was okay? Did they honestly think families at your income level should be getting it?
There are exceptions that allow free lunch at high income levels. I’ve known families with high income levels that qualify
First of all, if applying in 2018 for free lunch, you would not know what the 2018 AGI would be. I don’t know off hand what income number is used.
This does bring up a whole other issue: what does a student do if certain info given looks suspect? How much investigation should be done? If the question asked is whether you received free lunch in 2018, and you did, you answer “yes”, imo. If you want to investigate how you qualified at that time, go on ahead , but at the moment , you have your answer.
We did not fill out the free/reduced lunch for this year due to what happened last year.
On CSS I put that I DID NOT receive free/reduced lunch but they said that based on the information that I provided on the CSS I qualified for a fee waiver. Not sure how that happened.
And the 121k was for 2018 and we filled out the lunch form in 2018 so maybe they were estimating?
My parents were aware that we were getting free lunch and they were not OK with that (they don’t speak good English & can’t really use technology) - which is why we didn’t fill it out this year. My dad didn’t want me to fill out the CSS because of this.
Not sure if I should submit the CSS (applied to the colleges already).
Nvm - I I know why I got the CSS fee waiver. I put that my dad made $1 million and went to the submission part and saw that I still qualified for a waiver.
That is because I had an SAT fee waiver.
I’m guessing the guidance counselors at my school sometimes just hand them to anyone. I took the SAT my junior year (the year I had free lunch) and went to guidance with my friend who was requesting a fee waiver. The counselor checked my friends information and didn’t check mine but handed us both an SAT fee waiver. My counselor also gave me an ACT fee waiver for this year even though I didn’t fill out the lunch form.