My FAFSA was recently changed by a school but when the school was contacted nicely stating the changes noticed and requesting for reasons behind the changes, the reply was a one-liner curt message quoting ‘professional judgement’ and no other explanation in helping us understand the changes; the reply was not even signed off. In fact, the changes were wrong and that’s why they were contacted since this would trigger the modifications being sent to all other schools. The changes were specifically for the income made by parents & taxes paid (pre-filled by IRS retrieval tool).
Has anyone experienced this kind of rude reply from FA office? This is from a top 15 school. I am really disappointed by this kind of reply. Kind of puts a bad taste in my mouth about the supposedly great school. Please share some of your experiences or constructive suggestions on how to approach this issue without antagonizing the FA office.
Get on the phone and call bout this. Make sure you have the fafsa as well as your tax return in front of you when you call. You do NOT want to speak to the person who answers the phone…you want a financial aid officer.
@Fishnlines29 Apparently, the schools that you have applied to also can modify your FAFSA. My email came directly from FAFSA and some sleuthing led me to narrow down the school that did it.
@thumper1 The email was from the financial aid office; so I’m assuming it was from a FA officer.
@thumper1 Are you saying that a college, any college to which S sent a report, can go into his FAFSA filing and change data that they think is in error? I must be missing something here. That doesn’t sound right to me.
@thumper1 Are you sure that other schools won’t see this change? I thought that whenever the FAFSA is modified, the modified SAR is sent to all the schools on the list. I’m also hoping that this school’s FA office can’t see what other schools I have applied to.
I am also quite shocked. I just had a live chat interchange and sure enough, a school’s financial aid office can make a change which in turn is on your FAFSA going forward to all schools. If the “correction” is incorrect, you have to contact the office that made the change and have them fix it.
Actually one of my schools emailed me about disparity between the tax returns and SAR and later corrected the FAFSA. A couple of days later, another school updated the financial aid package however this was in my favor as even though the EFC went up, they gave me more money in grants.
I had this exact same thing happen to me. (http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20415765/#Comment_20415765) I can’t help but wonder if it’s the same school as I also got back a curt response about “professional judgment” even though the change was to a field that was filled by importing data directly from the IRS.
I also was under the belief that once a change was made, it was re-sent to all schools, but it appears that it may only be sent to all school if you make the change. But I’m still not sure.
@SuburbMom I think its a different university since I had got admitted there. I am going to call FAFSA help line today. Mine also was pre-populated by the IRS retrieval tool. They changed my parent’s income to a wrong bigger amount while it should be the salaries, wages, tips from W-2. They also changed other untaxed income from 0 to some # which makes no sense! This might make no difference to me since my EFC is high but it just boggles me why they would just change #s without offering explanation. After all, it is my document! I had to apply for FAFSA to be considered for university scholarships or grants, etc. I do not qualify for need-based. Thanks for sharing this!
I just called FAFSA helpline. It is disconcerting to learn that this school deleted all my other schools from FAFSA in addition to changing some financial info. And I can’t add them back. I need to call them. This is crazy! I don’t understanf why FAFSA would even allow colleges that kind of access to delete others from the list!
@anonstem - It is mind boggling, isn’t it! I wouldn’t worry too much about the other schools being deleted from your FAFSA - they should already have the information they need.
Agree, deleting after the fact doesn’t matter - they already got the information. I did confirm with studentaid the other day, however, that any updates will go to the other schools if they are on the list. Just crazy.
True to some extent. Some schools do not download FAFSA until they offer admission to the student; so they will not get my FAFSA (if I’m offered admission which is a totally different story since it is almost impossible to get into these schools). Also, I was told by FAFSA that to receive aid from any school, it has to be on the FAFSA college list. So, at some point, I’ll have to add the colleges back. I think I could probably add the colleges back to a previous transaction in the View Correction History section of the FAFSA & just remove this school so that it doesn’t get it again. However, it is prudent for me to wait until 4/1 since all the decisions should be out by then hopefully.
