This is my 4th kid going through college admissions and I still find this challenging. Some schools want the Fafsa by 2/1, some want the Profile by 2/1. My employer will not have W2s in my hands before 2/1 so I will have to do an estimation. Do I only file for the schools that require it by 2/1 and then refile with the correct data a week later after I have filed taxes including the other schools with a later deadline? Or do I file once for all schools and then correct for all schools?
Will I have to pay again to correct the estimated Profiles?
Wouldn’t this all be incredibly easier if schools all used a deadline of 2/5?
Oh my, yes. I honestly never really understood why they have the deadlines so close to W-2 release dates. I assume it’s for some kind of internal processing reason but it does put a lot of strain on some families.
You don’t have to submit to all schools at the same time for th FAFSA; you can fill out estimates for the schools that need it earlier and submit it. (I think you can do up to ten schools at a time). Then correct and resubmit as needed. That might get unwieldy though.
(If you are sending it to less than 10 schools you might as well send the estimate to all the schools and then submit the correction all at the same time.)