<p>I don’t know what the situation is currently in MD, as we are past that stage. However, when Happykid was in HS we were told that it was necessary to put a MD institution in the initial FAFSA list in order to have the information sent to the MD state financial aid program. As the aid at that time was awarded first-come-first-served and initial awards were based on the cost of attendance of the most expensive MD college/university on the student’s list, students were advised to list Johns Hopkins U on their FAFSA even if they had no intent to apply there because approval for JHU level aid would mean that they would surely receive the maximum aid for any other institution in the state that they ultimately did choose. Listing a cheap local CC before qualifying and then up-grading to a 4-year institution all too often meant that the students weren’t able to receive more than the CC’s level of aid because the money had run out before they changed their minds. At that time, state aid could be used at certain out-of-state programs for which there was no in-state equivalent. But it was still necessary to list at least one MD institution on that first FAFSA.</p>
<p>^ There are more than one thread about that. But the title of this thread is most misleading. FAFSA does not require the list of schools in any order. They do recommend putting the in state public first for aids from several states only.</p>
<p>Once FAFSA is processed one time and you get a result after a couple of days, does it take much time to process another submission? I would think that if you started on Sunday, the first submission might get processed on Tuesday, then resubmit and that might only take a day, and so forth. I would imagine that any delays would be for the first submission or for waiting over weekends/holidays.</p>
<p>2-3 days for EACH submission to be processed. If a student applies to 10 schools, it would take 20-30 days to submit one at a time FAFSA forms.</p>
<p>You know…kids get accepted or not for any variety of reasons. Kids get preferential financial aid packaging for any number of reasons. And the vast majority of colleges don’t meet full need anyeay. I’m not sure all this FAFSA order business is high on that list of reasons kids aren’t accepted or don’t receive sufficient aid.</p>
<p>But as I said earlier, if it will relieve some from being paranoid about this…yes…you can submit one at a time.</p>
<p>If its a Profile school, you have other issues. My understanding is the ONLY time other schools don’t see a submission is if you submit FIRST to a school, then add the others. That FIRST school would not see the subsequent additions, but every school after would be able to see prior submissions.</p>
<p>And it’s the Profile schools that have the large endowments, deep pockets, selective admissions, etc.</p>
<p>*2-3 days for EACH submission to be processed. If a student applies to 10 schools, it would take 20-30 days to submit one at a time FAFSA forms.
*</p>
<p>Is that still the case in 2014?</p>
<p>I’ve heard that now people submit and they get an EFC within 36 hours if it’s during the business week.</p>
<p>Well, even so, they don’t have to submit one per FAFSA. They can strategize and put the safeties on the top reach school, and so forth.</p>
<p>the reach schools are the ones who might be most likely to “care” so, if you only put one reach school on a each submission (along with some safeties and matches), then that would only be 2-3 submissions.</p>
<p>Does anybody know if New Jersey requires applicants to list their state school first? I already submitted my FAFSA and put the colleges in alphabetical order so I did not put my state school first.</p>
<p>The Michigan Competitive Scholarship, based on ACT scores and financial need, states in the paperwork that they base the “need” and award amount on the first school within the state of Michigan to be listed on the FAFSA. Because of that other article, I put his schools in alphabetical order and that happened to put one of his private Michigan schools at the top of the list so it worked out fine. It was a royal pain to keep bouncing around between states and it would have been much faster to list all Michigan schools first and go from there, but I figured we should play it safe, so went with the alphabetical listing. </p>
“That would be time consuming and it also wouldn’t work, according to Mark Kantrowitz, the financial aid guru, who is vice president at Edvisors Network. Each time a family submits the FAFSA to another school, an update would go out to all the previous schools on the student’s list.”