We unfortunately did not see that Barnard also wants our completed 2015 tax returns sent in by today! We though the FAFSA was all they needed before knowing whether or not D had been accepted. I am somewhat surprised by this requirement. Is it for all applicants? Our income was $125,000 with no other kids, but we live in Los Angeles and have NO money. However, I still don’t think we will qualify for need-based aid.
if you applied for fin aid, they need your returns - most colleges will accept it as late as 3/15 if you call and speak with them.
@searchingmom This is a basic requirement and virtually every college requires that you supply your tax returns. If I was you, I’d also check all the other universities you are applying to as I bet that they, too, will want copies of your tax returns…and will want them now as opposed to after decisions are sent out.
As for qualifying for aid, it will depend on what your expenses are (note that you cannot include consumer debt). You may well qualify for some degree of aid although you will have to contribute. I suggest you use the Net Price Calculator on the Barnard website.
Thank-you.
Thank-you.
@searchngmom Same issue here because I thought since they were affiliated with Columbia that they used IDOC, too (they don’t). I Priority Mailed ours on Sat. - I do not think it will cause a problem.
The FA website clearly states that they don’t use IDOC. Documents need to be mailed or faxed. Don’t sweat it. Your award notice will come out with your admissions decision. You’ll still get an award if they don’t have your tax returns, but it won’t be released or applied to your account without them.
A number of universities have withdrawn from IDOC because of processing problems.
I can’t even imagine how busy that fax is, considering that everyone who applied needs to submit. It seems like such a waste of paper, time, etc. Isn’t there a better way - for all colleges - like only have people who have committed send them in? Base the award on the input numbers and then adjust based on the forms?
@EmptyNessa,
We went with the suggestion from khanam and my daughter called them. They said to just mail it in because we were having trouble with faxing it. We could have
@2018eastorwest, I completely agree. We had to print out 46 pages of tax documents in order to get the papers we needed to fax. Barnard is the only college we applied to that isn’t allowing them to be emailed or downloaded/uploaded. It is not environmentally friendly. Also, I don’t understand needing our signed taxes and copies of our W2s before they have accepted our daughter. I understand that one school to which she applied had 51,000 applicants. Why do they need all those people’s financial papers when they are only going to accept about 10% of them into their school?
@searchngmom it was a nightmare for me too - i am the non-custodial parent and had to plead with the accountant to finish the returns of 3 LLCs, file them with the IRS along with my finished return, fax Barnard 57 pages of corporate tax returns of those 3 LLCs whose K1s constitute my K1s plus the 19 pages of my own personal tax returns (76 plus a cover page). To do all this I had to buy an e-fax subscription only for Barnard - no one i know uses fax anymore so we never had it. I also mailed everything because their fax was broken for stretches of time.
unlike some other schools, Barnard does not have a secure document upload facility and wont accept emails because they are not “secure”. argh!!! this was painful for sure. plus half the time their fax server was not working! and of course my daughter was curious if I had done everything needed so add that pressure. why do schools want this much from a non-custodial parent? why could my 2014 returns not suffice for now?
and honestly most of the IDOC schools did not ask for the underlying corporate tax returns - only barnard did and smith - but at least she already got early notification at smith so i understood the proctology exam. why all this before they admit her and if the student says yes i will join. until then everything should be based on FAFSA, CSS, last year’s returns etc.
The silver lining is this is the first year all our LLC corporate tax returns were filed prior to October 15th lol so I guess I can thank Barnard for lighting a fire under my whatever.