<p>By this I mean: </p>
<p>did you send your FAFSA to all your colleges at one time, </p>
<p>or did you break it up so that any one college would not see all you applied to?</p>
<p>I sent my FAFSA to all my colleges at once. I don't think that any one college would see any other colleges I'd applied to. And even if they did, I don't think they'd care.</p>
<p>even if it were, say, 12 colleges?</p>
<p>Did everyone else simply send their FAFSA to all colleges at once? It seems that any college is able to see all the colleges that were also in its transaction.</p>
<p>This question is really directed to those people who applied to 7, 8, 9 or more colleges.</p>
<p>It seems that there is no clear answer to this question. Many people, including Financial Aid officers at colleges, who frequent CC, have said that schools can see the whole list. Last year when I called FAFSA to ask them this very question, the (very helpful) person I spoke to said that the schools could not see the whole list. So, I guess it is a mystery. My D applied to 8 schools last year, and at that time, the FAFSA form only had room for 6 at a time. We did it in alphabetical order, and did it in two transactions. We did "game" the system a bit; we put the "lower tier" schools-- whatever that really means-- on one transaction, and the "upper tier" schools on the other one. It didn't seem to affect any decisions, but I guess we'll never know.</p>
<p>Just got off the phone from fafsa, and the help lady said that colleges do not see other colleges.</p>
<p>I agree with franglish, there doesn’t seem to be a clear answer to this question.</p>
<p>When my parents were getting ready to file our FAFSA I had them read the information I had researched on this site. Especially this post:</p>
<p>
School 1 CAN see schools 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6....school 2 CAN see schools 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6, and so on down the line. I am a Financial Aid Administrator's and look at FAFSA's all the time. I can see the other 5 schools listed on each of the FAFSA's I receive in my office. Now, if you list 12 schools in all....I can only see the 5 which are on the same transaction as my institution's code is listed.</p>
<p>Don't know who you spoke to....but they must not have understood your question, because Financial Aid Offices have had this ability for quite some time. In fact, many give preferential treatment to students who listed their school in the #1 spot.
</p>
<p>My dad called the FAFSA help line the next day and was also told that the colleges do not see each other. The website’s Privacy Policy doesn’t make specific reference to this, so he asked if the question was addressed anywhere else on the website or in print. He was told that it was not, but to take her word for it “they don’t see each other”.</p>
<p>In the end we thought it came down to a personal decision. Do the FAFSA people really want to encourage everyone to submit a whole bunch of additional transactions? Probably not. Does it really make a difference in the long run if the colleges see where else you've applied? Who knows. Most people might not have a need or a reason to do it, but at least the option is there for those who do.</p>
<p>"I love that voodoo you do!"</p>
<p>--college supplicant to adcon and the FAO</p>
<p>Nikkil works in a financial aid office at a university and often gives good advice and information on these forums.. If she says they can see other schools listed I would take her word over the FAFSA call line people from whom you will get a different answer depending on you talk to.</p>