Anyone else find this ridiculous? My parents didn’t even have their taxes done by then and I definitely don’t know how to do taxes, so I couldn’t really do it for them.
I guess if there’s a question in this, it’s whether Hampshire College is flexible or if I should be resigned to not getting any financial aid from them.
Your parents can fill it out using last year’s tax info and then revise it once their 2015 taxes are done. You do not want to miss the deadline.
It is not ridiculous, a lot of schools and state grant agencies have early deadlines.
And students are encouraged to submit FAFSA as soon as possible after Jan 1 if they want to qualify for maximum aid available.
Also the schools have deadlines so they can start putting together financial aid packages for students in early spring so they can compare packages and choose a school by May 1.
The FAFSA requires parent and student demographic and financial information (income/assets).
Have your parents gather up-to-date checking and savings account balances, and other investment info like savings bond values, 529 account balance, etc.
If your parents have an employer have them look on their W2 (or last 2015 paystub) for income, 401k contributions.
The FAFSA can be submitted with these items now and “will file” chosen, and after tax returns are filed and processed, parents can sign in and import tax information into the FAFSA with the IRS retrieval tool and then FAFSA can be resubmitted.
While tax information will need to be updated, asset information is supposed to be reported as of the day FAFSA is first submitted.
Like most universities, you cannot expect to receive financial aid if you miss the deadline. As other people have said, you can use estimates in completing the CSS Profile and FAFSA, and then amend them once the actual tax return is completed. Tens of thousands of students do so every year, and you shouldn’t expect any “flexibility”.
As for Hampshire, I did not wind up attending, but my financial aid was very good. They met my full need. I was asked to take loans, but only subsidised ones. Indeed, they offered better financial aid packages than USC, Georgetown, American University or NYU.