<p>I am a current high school senior applying for financial aid. I applied early decision to a school that required the Profile by Nov. 1st and was rejected. After I finished all my other apps for regular decision, I went ahead and sent the Profile that was already completed based on 2009 Tax returns to the schools. Now, after looking at some websites, I'm worried I made a mistake. Should I have waited until my parents filed 2010 taxes to amend the Profile and send it? Can I fix this or does it not matter as longs as I fill out the FAFSA based on the 2010 taxes?</p>
<p>Do the FAFSA after January 1 with 2010 taxes. Did you do the 11-12 Profile, or was it the 10-11? If it was the 11-12, you can probably just notify the schools & ask them what to do. My guess is that these schools are doing 100% verification, anyway … they will collect your ta info & make the necessary updates, I am guessing. However, your initial financial aid package could be incorrect as a result. Definitely contact each Profile school.</p>
<p>I did the 11-12 Profile. Alright, I will contact them. Thanks for your quick reply!</p>
<p>Don’t stress about it. They will probably tell you that they will make the updates based on the tax returns you submit.</p>
<p>Kelsmom, the colleges also update the Profile? I knew that the FAFSA is sometimes updated.</p>
<p>That is a HUGE relief, as I had to submit the profile early as well, and I am sure that once we do our 2010 taxes there will need to be corrections and I can’t make changes myself.</p>
<p>It is definitely best to check with each school to find out how/if they want you to inform them of any changes. However, the purpose of collecting tax returns is to verify the info that is on the FAFSA/Profile … so a school can easily make the updates & recompute the EFC for either form after reviewing the info. Since the Profile cannot be updated the way the FAFSA can be, you have to ask each school how they want you to inform them of necessary changes. Some may want you to point it out to them so that they can give you an accurate early estimate, and others may tell you to just submit the return & they will make the adjustments at that time.</p>
<p>This year, the FAFSA can be updated from estimated income info to actual a couple weeks after an electronic federal return is filed by accessing the IRS website from the FAFSA (select “Make corrections to a processed FAFSA” and update federal tax return info from “Will File” to “Already Filed” and it should ask you if you want to have your tax return info directly transferred to your FAFSA).</p>
<p>In our experience the Profile is updated one of two ways.
- School tells you to print out a copy and hand write the corrections for the items on your 2010 tax returns. They tell you where to send this (we did this for a bunch of schools between our two kids).</p>
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<li>Some Profile schools use IDOC. For these schools you send all supporting documents requested (tax forms and whatever else they ask for…it varies) to the IDOC. Your Profile is updated based on what you send.</li>
</ol>
<p>Even for schools requesting Tax returns (both of our kids’ schools did), we had to make the corrections to the Profile in one of the above ways. The school did not make those changes. Of course, that was a few years ago (thank goodness).</p>
<p>Anyway…call the colleges and ask them how to change info on your Profile. They will tell you what to do.</p>
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<p>FINALLY!!! Too late for me but FINALLY!!!</p>
<p>I love it … it will provide correct numbers, and as long as the student does not make any changes to it after the IRS retrieval, it looks like the feds won’t require schools to collect the tax return (but schools may still elect to do so, as it will probably be easier to require it from all). If students make any updates to the tax return items, though, the school will be notified that changes were made (and tax returns will be required, I would guess).</p>
<p>Update: One of the colleges I emailed replied back and said that as long as I filled out the FAFSA with 2010 tax returns and sent in 2010 W2s, they would fix the Profile internally. Relief!</p>
<p>Thank you all for the helpful comments!</p>
<p>Clairebear, that’s how it worked for us when my son applied early a few years ago. We sent in the Profile by the Nov. deadline with previous year info and with estimates for the rest. After Jan. 1st we submitted the FAFSA. The college uses IDOC so sometime around Feb./March we sent all our tax documents, but they never did require us to do anything further with the Profile. I imagine they just made any necessary adjustments themselves.</p>