Hi all. D is currently a freshman. I’m concerned about the timing of submitting the Fafsa and Css Profile. We’ve had a crazy financial year with a job loss…severance…a move…a new job for myself and my wife. So…I really don’t want to estimate and correct like last year. I’d rather wait to file everything once I’ve done my taxes…say mid-February. But, we did everything last year in the first day of two of January and all I heard was how important it was to be early. The UofR website says the returning students will receive instructions on submitting things in February. I feel like we might be missing something though, if we wait that long. Am I? I’ve been calling FA since last week but haven’t been able to talk with anyone yet. Any need for me to worry about submitting everything in mid-February?
When D was at UR, I seem to remember doing all that stuff in February. Filing that stuff early may be more important for prospective students, as opposed to returnees.
Hey there! The deadline is indeed May 2nd for returning students. You won’t get more money if you apply before May 2nd. We’re super busy in March and April reviewing aid applications for incoming freshmen, and don’t start to review returning student applications until May. We finish that up and email out the packages in mid-June or so.
Does that go for the Fafsa as well? If I file it in mid-Feb, am I blowing something? I just don’t want to have a surprise that I could have avoided. Because I could work through estimating this weekend if we would be better off.
Typically with FAFSA you can file it with estimated data, then submit a corrected version after doing your taxes. I always did a rough estimated calculation with TurboTax, filed FAFSA, then submitted the actual #'s at a later date.
@Yokennyr- mid-February is fine! Like @MADad said, you can always file it with an estimate and then update it later. Either way, we won’t start reviewing returning student applications until after May 2nd, so you have plenty of time 
Does every returning student need file CSS profile for financial aid?
If not, why some do and some don’t?
If yes, why Univ of Rochester need CSS profile, not only FAFSA for financial aid?
@Bellawei - every returning student does NOT need to file the CSS PROFILE. Some do based on the aid that they received the year before. U of R needs the CSS PROFILE to determine how to give our institutional grant money.