My DDs told me today that they have a scholarship application to fill out on the UCI portal. They would be incoming freshmen. The deadline is stated as January 15, 2020.
In addition, they say: “Important Note: To be eligible for scholarships, please submit your FAFSA or DREAM Act Application by 11:59 pm on 12/31/2019.”
While they were planning to work on their FAFSA over the winter break anyway, I was surprised by the 12/31 deadline as I thought the general UC deadline was March 2. Is anyone else seeing this?
The schools can set any deadlines they want for FAFSA ‘priority’ consideration, for their own funds or scholarships. Even the March 2 deadline is an artificial deadline set by the California schools. You can fill out the FAFSA any time you want and still get the federal funds, but if you want those California funds, or if you want the school’s funds, get your paperwork finished.
Really, the FAFSA takes very little time unless you have an extremely complicated financial picture.
@twoinanddone
Thanks for the info. We will have one main issue to figure out for the FAFSA:
Parents are separated but still file taxes together so far and have no legal separation or divorce agreement yet), non-custodial parent provides all of the income, pays mortgage, bills, etc. for the custodial parent. Not sure how to figure out exactly how much was paid in such bills (or where to report it on the FAFSA) as some of our accounts are still intermingled. I thought we would have a little more time to look into it.
FYI, I am the non-custodial parent and will do whatever is required for the girls and custodial parent. It is just a matter of figuring out what to report and where to report it.
We just disovered this page a few days ago. There are 12 scolarship questions with a 250 word maximum for each question and a very tight deadline.
Since your tax filing status was married filing jointly for 2018, and your status now at date of filing is separated, you won’t be able to use the DRT and will have to fill in all the income info manually. That almost guarantees you will be selected for verification.
You just have to work through the questions and give the best information you have. Answer each question and don’t count assets or income twice (although the same funds could be both an asset and income). You can decide if funds received are child support or alimony (support) since there is no court order.
@twoinanddone
Got it. Thanks again!