Financial Aid Concern

Hi,
Son applied to wake forest in September and admitted in October. We sent in fafsa and css on October 31. When we called Wake Forest to check the status on financial aid, they said that they had our fafsa on file but not css because of some issue regarding “batches” or “patches,” didn’t quite understand what they were saying.

I’m very worried because this is our 3rd time calling wake and no one responded positively. Does this mean that the institutional aid from CSS will not be given to me? Please help because my last resort is to go in physically to talk to them.

I don’t want to open the letter up in December and see that no institutional aid was given. We can’t pay full price, however we can pay up to the financial aid calculator which said 41k. 70k is out of the question for us.

Please help! Thank you!

Regarding batches - when you submit the CSS Profile, you are submitting it to College Board, a private entity that administers the Profile. They are then responsible for ‘accepting it’ as complete, and forwarding it to the schools. The schools do not receive these one by one; rather, they upload these in ‘batches’ from College Board – a large number of applications per batch. I am unsure if the school told you there was ‘a problem with the batch’ or that they simply ‘had not uploaded that batch’ – but it is common for it to take longer for the school to receive your CSS Profile that it does for them to receive / access your FAFSA.

I would recommend calling the financial aid office to ask the name of the Financial Aid counselor / contact to which your son’s application has been assigned, getting their email, then emailing them directly. If they cannot give you a specific name or email, then write directly to financial aid. Perhaps if you phrase the question more specifically and mention the issue with the ‘delay due to uploading in batches’, they can give you a more specific answer. (At least, we hope so.)

Last year, I helped a friend navigate some of this with another school’s financial aid department, as English was not their primary language. (I just helped behind the scenes…) They had this same question and I have included below the text that they used in their email. Of course, change as needed. I am just sharing in case it helps.

Good luck! (The text used in last year’s email is below. )

“I am writing to confirm receipt of my son’s CSS Profile by (school name). Although I submitted it on October 31, I realize these are uploaded by the school in batches and not the day I submit it. However, I am unsure if or when it will be received by (school). My concern is that the school will not have my son’s Profile information in order to calculate a timely and complete award. We were hoping to have received the award letter for consideration by December 1st, but I am uncertain if that is realistic. Is there a way to confirm if / when it is received by the school, and to have a general idea of when we might expect to hear re: an award?” (Then your usual thank you, etc…)