FAFSA Conundrum

Paying for College
1

(I posted this in our 2016 Parents thread, but I’d love advice from the sage people in this forum as well)…

Oh no, FAFSA conundrum! :((

We were told to submit FAFSA to S’s first 10 schools, especially paying attention to list state schools first. Wait to receive word that it was processed, then go back in, delete schools, and resubmit with remaining schools. We did everything as advised. Smooth sailing, or so we thought.

This morning, my S and I did a sweep through every school’s portal just in case we missed anything. One school’s portal says that the FAFSA was “not received.” Strange, I thought…wasn’t that one of the schools in the first batch? Checked notes, yes it was. Read a concerning post on the Fin Aid forum, then placed a phone call to FAFSA (talking into the right side of the phone).

Well, it turns out that just because you receive an email saying FAFSA was processed doesn’t mean that the school has accessed the info! The FAFSA rep said that once we submit it, we need to contact all the schools to see if they’ve downloaded it. And if they haven’t, don’t delete that school’s name yet!

So I went through all the school portals (again) and only two schools show that they’ve received FAFSA. Two schools, including S’s first choice, have not! And the rest of the schools don’t even display any info at all about financial aid docs.

Berkeley’s Financial Aid office was closed, so I called UC Irvine’s FA office. I explained the situation, and the rep said,
"There’s no way to check your status because we don’t even access FAFSA until beginning of February. What??!!

Not sure how to proceed from here, but I think I will call the privates tomorrow to see who has the FAFSA and who does not. Any veteran parents with advice to share? :((

2

What amount of need-based aid are you hoping for that is only based on the FAFSA?

3

Can you resubmit to the schools that are showing that they haven’t rec’d?

4

At time we had twice the number of schools so had to go through this. I think all the schools or most also had the CSS. Somehow I think that the CSS downloads the FASFA information so it stays accessible to the schools that use both? We never had an issue like this.

5

Yep we just found this out today too. My daughter called her school because she wants to apply for a housing grant. We did the FAFSA and it was processed on the 6th. The school said they won’t putll those figures in for the incoming class till the beginning of February. Her grant application is due Feb 15th!

6

The CSS does not download the FAFSA information.

Call the FAFSA helpline tomorrow. If your FAFSA was processed, it just might be some time before the school uploads it…it’s there…but the school hasn’t accessed it yet.

Ask the FAFSA helpline where your first batch is…it could,be sitting on their server waiting for the colleges to access it. Ask.

7

They all have the FAFSA, they just haven’t pulled it yet. Once it’s processed, the school has it.

It’s kind of like if you mailed it and it’s just sitting on their desk. They have it, they just don’t know it yet.

8

Thank you, everyone. I called FAFSA again this morning re: filing for 10+ schools. The rep I got today said that the submitted info will still be accessible to the first batch of schools even after we’ve submitted it to the second batch of schools. She had to put me on hold to check with someone, just like the rep I spoke to yesterday. I sure hope her answer is accurate.

She did say that once we have our actual tax info to upload, to make sure we do it in reverse - submit it to the current list (2nd batch), wait 3-5 days for it to be processed, then go back in to delete those schools, add in the first 10 schools, and upload tax info again.