<p>So, I already filled out my FASFA and put Northwestern as one of my schools. If I did not fill out a profile, would I still be eligible for some aid from northwestern? Is it okay not to do both?</p>
<p>No, you need to meet all the school’s requirements. Fill out the profile by the deadline.</p>
<p>You do need to submit CSS profile and the deadline is coming up soon.</p>
<p>The FAFSA is the only thing required for federal aid. There was a big kerfuffle about colleges not being clear about this last week. </p>
<p>Additional information, such as the CSS and others of that ilk are required by some schools for their university’s aid. </p>
<p>Not turning in an additional profile will limit you from school funding only, not federal. But there is no penalty for not turning in a CSS, except that you will not be considered for need based awards from that school. </p>
<p>For Northwestern, need based aid would be likely mostly from non-Federal source. From my NPC, the only Federal aid my D is entitled to is the $5500 loan while NU will cover several times of that in financial aid. So make sure you do submit CSS profile if you found you are eligible to aids on NFC. There is no penalty in not submitting any financial aid applications late if the funding is not limited. If you don’t need any aid, it probably does not matter. The general rule of thumb is to submit all the forms before the deadline and as soon as possible. After you submitted the CSS profile, NU will require IDOC package too.</p>
<p>FAFSA is required for federal aid, but many schools also use that data to verify the CSS profile data. So submitting FAFSA is NOT only required for Federal aid.</p>
<p>Very true. If you are going after school based aid, you will need both. </p>
<p>I apologize if I was unclear about that.</p>
<p>The FAFSA is legally the only requirement for federal aid, whereas schools are free to set their own verification system and requests for their university funding requests that go over and above federal aid. </p>
<p>Part of the reason for that is federal law- because the CSS incurs multiple charges, it is considered an impediment to existing federal law regarding access to federal finding for education. </p>
<p>It’s really pretty interesting- and the information that came out last week explaining how unclear some schools were about the difference was interest. I think over 100 schools were criticized for being unclear. </p>