<p>I’m getting notices that our FAFSA is due. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the stipend portion of the scholarship ($1000) is tied to the FAFSA. Somebody tell me I dreamed that. I need to know whether I need to submit this thing.</p>
<p>Son will be in his second year next year. </p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>No, it’s not tied to FAFSA at all. That’s the official part of the NMF scholarship and it gets processed thru the NMCorp.</p>
<p>As a returning student, son just received a letter of scholarship renewal from National Merit Corp. for the $1,000 portion of his scholarship. A userid and password are provided to renew the scholarship. Deadline for renewal is Mar. 27.</p>
<p>My son received $2500 from NMF. We were told by Amber C. that for his sophomore to senior years he would get the $1000. Does anyone have experience with this? My question is whether the National Merit Corporation would send us a letter (like those with the $1000) or if Alabama just credits the $1,000 without us having to do anything?</p>
<p>Slippy, we’re a couple of years different, but I had gone to one of those college nights for the public and went to a talk by a TOPS guy. In order to qualify for TOPS, you have to fill out the FAFSA. I’m not sure if the rules have changed, but at the time of the talk, even if son wanted to head to that upriver school for his last year, and we filled out the FAFSA and he qualified grade wise, he would still be able to get TOPS for that final year. So, we still fill out the FAFSA, even though son has the same scholarship yours does at Bama. You can choose them to get the info from your tax return and it is a very quick process. It’s just a formality, and it won’t help or hurt your financial aid in any way.</p>
<p>kjcf…you probably need to email Amber to make sure the process happens correctly.</p>
<p>Montegut… the main problem is that this “formality” costs $69.99.</p>
<p>Slippy- I’m not sure if you’re referring to the FAFSA costing $69.99 or something else (I’m not familiar with TOPS). The FAFSA is free (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). The website is fafsa.ed.gov. Beware of websites trying to charge you for filing a FAFSA like those with a .com on the end.</p>
<p>Sorry if you already knew this info, I just got worried that you were about to be scammed…</p>
<p>The FAFSA that I do online every year is free. I believe it is the website rocroll is referring to. I am not familiar with something that costs 70 bucks, but I haven’t done it yet this year, so maybe that’s a change? Would not be surprised, given the current state of affairs.</p>
<p>The FAFSA is still free. I’ve filed this year and can verify that there is no charge and it takes well under a half hour to complete if you have your tax forms handy.</p>
<p>Although I know we don’t qualify for any federal aid, the FAFSA is also used for federal loans. We didn’t take out any loans for S’s first year and hope for that trend to continue, but we are still paying room, food, and books out of pocket. Personally, I’d rather be safe than sorry. Just in case something happens that would prevent me from paying expenses - an accident, an illness, a loss of employment, I’d rather the paperwork was already processed, so S could just go into the financial aid office and get a loan processed to make sure his bills get paid.</p>
<p>We didn’t fill one out Year 1 - but it might be a good idea to have it on hand in case the need arises for a loan. When is it due?</p>
<p>Thanks, y’all. I realized something was askew when I got to the “submit payment” page. I did not do it.</p>
<p>Submitting FAFSA is free. You need to make sure you’re on the .gov page, not a 3rd party page.</p>
<p>The first F in FAFSA stands for FREE.</p>
<p>RTR…if you only want a loan, you can fill it out anytime…even long after the school year starts.</p>
<p>Per the FAFSA website:</p>
<p>Federal Deadline
Online applications must be submitted by midnight Central Time, June 30, 2014.
Any corrections or updates must be submitted by midnight Central Time, September 24, 2014. </p>
<p>However if circumstances change or an emergency arises, they will accept forms after the deadline, it will just take longer to process and grant aid at that time than it would if the form was already processed.</p>
<p>There is no set deadline (concerning loans only) but there are both Federal and State deadlines for the FAFSA when you need financial aid. You need to check these deadlines on the FAFSA website.</p>