<p>Based on what Thumper1 said, here is my question…If our income is 500,000, I fill out a FAFSA and apply for FA, my kid is denied FA freshman year. In year two, we lose our jobs, and our income drops below 100,000 with very little asset, would our kid be ahead of line of another family with similar situation, but didn’t fill out a FAFSA the first year? I wouldn’t see why, but maybe I am missing something.</p>
<p>Every school is different but one has to question how you would have had an income of 500k and have few assets.</p>
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<p>D1’s college required us to fill out the FAFSA and PROFILE before she could be considered for any merit aid. Our EFC was 99,000…so I guarantee that we received no need-based aid. However, the school did give her a merit award of 16K/year. </p>
<p>So for us, it was worth filling out the FAFSA even though we knew we would not qualify for need-based aid. D2 is a rising senior. We will not fill out the FAFSA again, unless she applies to a school that requires it to be considered for merit aid.</p>
<p>DocT - I was trying to make a point by giving an extreme situation where one could possibly be eligible for FA the second year, but not the first. You are right, under normal circumstance, if you were making 300-500 per year, as stated by OP, and your financial situation should change (lost of a job) you would still not be qualified for any FA, so why bother to fill out FAFSA (except in the case of possible “merit” scholarship).</p>
<p>I’m with oldfort, would not want to file all of that info with no chance of getting aid. Most families making $400K have built up assets. They could lose income and still not qualify for many years or ever in many cases.</p>
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<p>I have heard that some schools do this and I think it is wrong. Schools are just collecting financial information that is none of their business. If they want to offer merit awards, they should do so without first checking a family’s finances. If they want to consider family finances, they should call awards financial aid. Involving family finances in merit awards confuses consumers, and having family financial details floating around at every school to which a student applies is dangerous, as all institutions are not equally diligent about protecting private information.</p>
<p>The reason she doesn’t want to actually fill out a FAFSA is because she thinks that some schools may base acceptance on whether you need money. On many applications, they do ask if you will be applying for need-based aid. So if you are planning on filing the FAFSA, I guess you have to check “yes” even though you know your EFC will be too high to qualify for need-based aid, right?</p>
<p>And if schools don’t base your acceptance on whether you plan to file a FAFSA, then why do they ask on the application?</p>
<p>Couldn’t your friend just file as FAFSA to the schools that require it for merit-aid/are need-blind as is and not the schools that ask that on the application/are stated as need-sensitive?</p>
<p>psych,</p>
<p>The common app. asks…which covers a lot of schools. How does one know which schools consider it and which don’t?</p>
<p>That’s exactly the way most people who want merit and won’t qualify for need treat the filing, psych. I can understand the benefits of requiring a FAFSA filing before awarding merit. Why give a full tuition scholarship, paid with precious endowment funds, to a kid with a 0 EFC who qualifies for federal and state grants? I think it’s perfectly reasonable to expect the lower income kid to take advantage of those grants first, coupled with a lower merit award, and save the university funds for those who will not be eligible for other aid. The schools that do this are often not the ones with the “instant merit” awards, but are generally the ones that do offer some very high value scholarships.</p>
<p>You can make several versions of the common app to submit to different schools. I believe that you can answer questions like “will you be applying for need-based aid?” differently for the different schools.</p>
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<p>Each school’s website should tell you their policy. If it doesn’t, ask, and then tailor your application accordingly.</p>
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It is very easy to protect all your family financial information. Don’t ask for any aid, even merit-based. Just pay the full price. Problem solved.</p>
<p>If on the other hand you are asking for a discount from full price using endowment and alumni contributions, it is reasonable to expect to reveal your own family financial situation.</p>