Nope I did not make any changes. It went to 9 schools yesterday together. I need to add one more school today and system is down again…
Frankly I am not hoping for anything. We just file and see. We would for sure go for merit money over some school-based aid for one year. School-based aid is never a guarantee. Merit money usually guaranteed for all 4 years (with required GPA etc.)
Yes…and with an unusual financial situation, merit aid is the way to go! It doesn’t deal with your finances in most cases.
Our kids did the FAFSA every year and were therefore able to take part of the Direct loan each year. We paid the interest each year…self subsidized, I guess. Our graduation gift to them was paying their Direct Loans off in full. This was a surprise gift to them at graduation.
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Umm… a person who has a reasonable expectation that the student will earn $10k next summer? Look, it’s an estimate, a best guess. Nobody will be accused of fraud if their estimate turns out to off. Even way off. It’s an extra data point for the college that is not used to figure the EFC (see below).
No, it’s not. The estimated future earnings are not in any way used to calculate the EFC. The calculated EFC for the award year is based primarily on past earnings and current assets.
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For colleges that include a student contribution separate from the EFC, some did seem to use that projected summer work number in the total aid package.
For sure. Otherwise they would not ask that question…
Not likely. Likely they used the prior prior summer income…because in all cases, prior prior year income is used for financial aid calculations. So if you are doing a 2023-2024 FAFSA or Profile, 2021 income is used….not 2022 or 2023.
Again, the reporting of expected future income is not used to set an EFC for the academic year for which the application is being submitted.
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Based on packages for D21 at meets 100% need colleges, there were expectations for the student in addition to their EFC for us as parents. This included money earned by the student during the summer before that school year and in the CSS the question about how much the student expects to earn that next summer was asked.
@Pathnottaken Just because a question is asked does not mean it’s used in the financial aid calculation.
Agree. Not always used. And not used against a family.
I was surprised by the additional “contribution” expected from summer work in some aid packages.
From Dartmouth:
“We expect students to work during the summer, or whichever leave term they are not on campus, and contribute towards their costs. For the 2022-2023 academic year the minimum student contribution for first year students was between $1,000 and $2,000. For returning students this will range between $1,500 and $3,000. A contribution from student assets may also be expected as part of your student contribution.”
See summer work contribution:
Our experience is that a contribution from student assets is definitely expected.
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We got a disaster with CSS profile. Got a call from Case Western stating that CSS wages do not match FAFSA. Well CSS did not explain what line to use from where (I have put total wage pretax). CSS cannot change anything for $160 that we paid them. I was advised to call every single college (10 of them!) and make sure that they will fix it… Now we have on CSS profile income that we do not have…
Did you watch the CSS Tutorials on CB’s website? If not you should do that now, so you know exactly what you will need to report when you chat with the colleges. Many of them are likely to ask for all of your supporting documents.
This tutorial also has a section on what to do if you made a mistake that may still help.
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It is pointless now. I am going to call colleges now… Imagine conversation - DD is going to apply. She did not yet… But CSS profile is wrong… Can we fix it? Well… we do not have her ID yet…
And this is for failed website, hold on the phone for hours, and paying them! I love College Board. This is useless money collecting institution.
Maybe you should wait until she applies so that they have an applicant ID that they can tie the CSS profile to?
I think you are rushing.
I had no issues with CSS or FAFSA. If I did, I researched b4 doing.
If there’s no way to unsubmit, then slow down, develop a plan, have all your facts organized so you can communicate clearly to the offices.
I thought you’re chasing merit, not need aid - so if you’re not chasing need aid or if your income is so large, it’s not going to matter anyway.
Good luck.
Stay in state or go to one of the big auto merit schools you’re not interested in and you won’t have these issues 
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Had an issue with IDOC, my Tax returns were not getting accepted no matter how I named the file. After googling, I found out that file size limit was 9 MB and mine was bit larger.
Had to get Adobe Acrobat trial version to compress the document(It was a PDF) and then it was accepted. I Wish website made this clear that file size is an issue or what is the maximum allowed after multiple upload failures.
Their issue though sounds like wrong figures…
The CSS is obviously much more in depth than FAFSA.
I had no IDOC issues but I use turbotax and it saves as a PDF. Brokerage statements too.
I guess I got lucky on that one.
Well out goal is totally opposite. We want small school not in state…