<p>My college counselor is convinced that students do not have to turn in either the FAFSA or the CSS Profile on time. His reasoning is that students should not have to pay for a financial aid application because the future is so uncertain and they just might happen to be rejected from a school. (To me, it sounds like he is letting his opinion of the financial aid system cloud his judgement.) He believes that we should hold off on sending the FAFSA and CSS to schools we don't feel like we will 100% get into. </p>
<p>My concern with that is what happens if I am missing out on a great financial aid opportunity to a school because they are unaware that I need the money too. (UGH. This is so frustrating.) So far, I sent the FAFSA/CSS to about 1/4 of the schools I am applying to. I always doubted him on this matter but, for a while I completely forgot about all of this. Even if I sent out all of my FAFSAs/CSSs today a large portion of them will be late. </p>
<p>Has my counselor been wrongly advising the senior class? Or is he right?
What should I do?</p>
<p>If I already missed the deadline, should I still send them? Should I apologize to the school or something?
And thank you, for replying so swiftly :)</p>
<p>Isn’t it free to send your Fafsa (mine were anyways so not sure what you’re talking about when you state “pay for a financial aid application” because they’re free) so why would you even question it? And not being sarcastic but they’re called deadlines for a reason on most websites it states if you miss the deadline you lose out on consideration for priority financial aid. (My teacher described it as a giant pool of money , you miss the deadline and you’re left with whatever is left over in the budget)</p>
<p>Right. The FAFSA is free. You know, college applications also have fees. Does your GC recommend not paying those too…or missing admission deadlines?</p>
<p>If you have completed the FAFSA, it will not take you long to add the rest of your colleges…and it IS free! I sure hope you didn’t pay for that!</p>
<p>And if your FAFSA is complete and your parents have done their taxes, you should be able to complete the Profile which does have a fee.</p>
<p>Okay, let me clarify. I filled out the FAFSA for the first 6 (or something like that) free schools. And that’s were I was told to stop by my counselor. I technically applied to about 19 (give or take) schools. (I know, that is a pretty high number. But, I rather have more options to choose from in April rather than feel like I have no choice but to go to a school because it was the only good one I applied to.) Anyways, it is the remaining 12 (give or take schools) which I have not filled out a FAFSA for yet. </p>
<p>My counselor said that the schools all have so much money, that if I sent the FAFSA in April after I got an acceptance letter there would still be enough money for me to get some. </p>
<p>I was honestly did not believe him at all. But, everyone else in my school seemed to be so trusting leading me to getting too comfortable and distracted. And, now I’m in this shat hole of a mess.</p>
<p>I truly hope you misunderstood your counselor. If not, he is incorrect. Schools do NOT have so much money to give that they still have lots left over for those who file FAFSA late. Schools give out aid on a first-come, first-served basis, and getting the FAFSA / Profile in early is very important. </p>
<p>There is no reason to worry about being late. Just get your stuff in NOW and see what happens. You can send the FAFSA to 10 schools at a time. Write down the school codes where you sent the FAFSA - if you haven’t made any corrections to your original FAFSA, this is transaction 1; write that down with the school codes. Now go into your FAFSA and make corrections … erase the school codes, put in new ones … write those down, along with the notation that they are transaction 2. If you need to add more school codes, wait until the changes finish processing, then erase the school codes, add in the new ones, write them down, and note that they are on transaction 3. The reason you are writing the school codes & transactions is because if you have to go back and make changes to your FAFSA (or do an IRS Data Retrieval), you will need to do it for each transaction in order to ensure that the changes are made for every school. Transaction 1 would then be 4, 2 would be 5, and 3 would be 6.</p>
<p>I am sure you don’t have as many schools that require Profile, so get that done & send off to the Profile schools.</p>
<p>(1) FAFSA is free for ALL your schools, not just the first six.</p>
<p>(2) PROFILE might cost you something . . . or it might not, depending on your income. The fee (and your eligibility for a waiver) is calculated automatically when you complete the online form.</p>
<p>(3) Did you tell all your schools that you would be applying for financial aid? If not, you need to correct that ASAP!</p>
<p>(4) For some schools, filing late could reduce your aid. For others, it might just delay the school’s calculation of your award . . . but how do you decide which school to attend when you don’t know how much financial aid you’d be getting??? So get the rest of those applications in immediately!</p>
<p>(5) Your guidance counselor is an idiot! And, honestly, if you’re sure you understood him correctly, he should be reported to the school administration. His bad advice could really hurt a lot of kids who need financial aid. After the dust settles in May, you should think about reporting him - don’t let him do this to future applicants!</p>
<p>Also, your Profile schools are likely going to need your parents’ 2012 tax returns . . . so warn your parents to be prepared for that. (And they’ll probably need them pretty quickly!)</p>
<p>Yes, your college counselor has given you misinformation. However, it does not negate the fact that you are also responsible for doing your due diligence. A simple search each on the financial aid pages of the schools where you applied would have told you what you need to submit and when you need to submit it.</p>
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<p>If you always doubted him, once again, did you check the school’s website? Did you contact the school? Did you seek another source? Are you saying that you forgot that you had to actually apply for financial aid? If you forgot all about it, this only compounds your situation.</p>
<p>The best that you can do is file your paperwork ASAP. Go to the website of each one of your schools, see what is due and when it is due.</p>
<p>Log on to FAFSA, print out a copy of your current FAFSA with the school codes. Then add the next 10 schools on your list and submit. Wait a couple of days until you get the SAR, print out the FAFSA again and then add the last 3 schools.</p>
<p>If your remaining 13 schools need the profile schools (you stated that you did 6 “free” schools) sit with your parents and their tax forms and start filling out the profile. The profile does have a fee $25 for the first school and $16 for each additional school. IF you are eligible for a fee waiver (which the college board will calculate and let you know automatically), the fee for 6 schools will be waived and you must be prepared to pay for the other 7 schools in order for them to be processed.</p>
<p>If your parents have not filed their taxes, they need to do so ASAP because you will need to use the IRS data retrieval tool for the FAFSA.</p>
<p>I agree with Sybbie - you need to talk to yuur counselor’s boss, and inform them of what happened. They need to know that either the counselor is giving bad information to students (and sabotaging their application process by doing so) or at the least causing confusion. It is possible the counselor meant to stop at 6 for the Profile, but it that was the case, he should have explained that you need to pick which 6 very carefully, because you won’t get a great package at others that still require profile.</p>
<p>If you wait until and admission decision has been made to send the Profile, the money will have been distributed among those who sent it in on time. The only way you would get aid after that is if becomes available because someone else frees us their aid by deciding not to attend - not a risk worth taking.</p>
<p>A counselor should never tall a student not to spend money - he should warn them that certain things will have a cost. I can only imagine the final statistics on where kids from your school go if this is the common belief among counselors there.</p>
<p>Nineteen schools? If they are all Profile schools and you do NOT qualify for a waiver for six, you will be paying for 13.</p>
<p>Regardless, read those college websites ASAP. Some schools have their own financial aid forms or other required submissions in addition to the FAFSA and Profile (if required) You need to find out what each of YOUR colleges require and submit everything ASAP.</p>
<p>I think that this could have been what the counselor meant. </p>
<p>Since we don’t know the kid’s situation (s/he could be a low income kid who cannot afford to pay the cost of filing the profile at 13 additional schools) we really have no idea as to what conversation took place. </p>
<p>Perhaps, GC (while still wrong) advised the student not to pay the profile cost for schools that were real long shots for the student to gain admissions given his/her profile and to only submit a profile for schools where s/he stand a good chance of beign admitted. </p>
<p>If there is going to be a problem paying the Fees (over $200 for 13 schools) perhaps OP’s parents may feel that this kind of $$ is not warranted (especiall for a possibility).<br>
We have plenty of parents/students right her on CC who also believe the same thing that the GC in this situation does that they should not have to pay $16 per school to apply for financial aid especially if you do not know if you are even going to be admitted. </p>
<p>However, it does not make the information correct. If OP has exhausted his 6 schools on the waiver and his parents cannot afford to pay s/he is stuck and will have some incomplete applications unless someone can come up with the funds. If this is OP’s situation</p>
<p>If OPis a low income student and gets into HYPS or a couple of deep pocket schools (with no loans), those schools will still allow him to send in his/her financial aid information with probably no change in the financial aid award. Where Op could run into a problem is if s/he does not have a straight forward situation (non-custodial parents, step parents, parents who are self employed, own their own business and farms) because this could really complicate their FA situation.</p>