<p>I've been selected for FAFSA verification. I went to carnegie mellon's checklist, and they apparently require a return transcript from the IRS. So here's my question:</p>
<p>If your FAFSA is selected for verification, are you automatically required to submit federal return transcripts to all colleges you applied to? Or is it just for some colleges that require them?</p>
<p>And if you know any colleges that require return transcripts, can you tell me if the following colleges require them?</p>
<p>MIT
Cornell
Penn
University of Michigan
Carnegie Mellon
Wash U in St. Louis
Johns Hopkins
Penn State (Schreyers)</p>
<p>Eventually everyone is going to request your federal tax returns, either through verification for federal aid, or need based aid. </p>
<p>Your best bet would be to look up the financial aid policies at each of these schools to see what they require instead of asking others to do the leg work for you.</p>
<p>I’ve already sent all the colleges a copy of my and my parents’ tax returns. But I don’t know if all colleges require the tax return copies AND the return transcript. Only Carnegie Mellon actually asks for them, but I didn’t know if the colleges that asked for tax return copies also wanted the return transcripts or not.</p>
<p>We were selected for verification. Each college will have their own process. Some will simply want you to update your FAFSA with the IRS Data Retrieval tool (which we never could get to work,) others will have a form for you to fill out as well, others may want something different. You will have to do some type of verification at every school though. Since we couldn’t get the IRS tool to work we had to send in the IRS Transcript to each school but some also had other things they wanted as well. No one other than IDOC wanted a copy of our tax returns.</p>
<p>Did you use the the IRS Data Retrieval Tool on the FAFSA to send your taxes? Many schools are now using this to verify tax information because it comes directly from the IRS. This could be the reason that they are asking you for a transcript for verification purposes. From what I have seen of other schools, you may have one of 3 options:</p>
<p>The student has used the IRS Data Retrieval Tool in FAFSA on the Web to retrieve and transfer 2011 IRS income information into the student’s FAFSA, either on the initial FAFSA or when making a correction to the FAFSA. The student’s school will use the IRS information that was transferred in the verification process.</p>
<p>The student has not yet used the IRS Data Retrieval Tool in FAFSA on the Web, but will use the tool to retrieve and transfer 2011 IRS income information into the student’s FAFSA once the student has filed a 2011 IRS tax return. See instructions above for information on how to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool. The student’s school cannot complete the
verification process until the IRS information has been transferred into the FAFSA.</p>
<p>The student is unable or chooses not to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool in FAFSA on the Web, and the student will submit to the school a 2011 IRS tax return transcript—not a photocopy of the income tax return. To obtain an IRS tax return transcript, go to [Internal</a> Revenue Service](<a href=“http://www.IRS.gov%5DInternal”>http://www.IRS.gov) and click on the “Order a Return or Account Transcript” link, or call 1-800-908-9946.
Make sure to request the “IRS tax return transcript” and not the “IRS tax account transcript.” You will need your Social Security Number, date of birth, and the address on file with the IRS (normally this will be the address used when the 2011 IRS tax return was filed). It takes up to two weeks for IRS income information to be available for electronic IRS tax return filers, and up to eight weeks for paper IRS tax return filers.</p>