Help with Financial Aid Forms

Paying for College
1

<p>I am at lost with the financial forms. My mother can't speak English well and does not know how to use the computer at all. Therefore, I will have to fill it out myself and ask for whatever information I need from her.</p>

<p>But I am a U.S. citizen and have been in the United States for eight years. </p>

<p>But my situation is somewhat unusual. My father lives in Hong Kong where he is a teacher. He only visits occasionally (maybe 3 times a year). How would I produce tax forms concerning his salary? How do I list my father in the application? My parents are not divorced nor officially separated. He just didn't immigrate to the United States with us because he loved Hong Kong and his school too much (I supposed). Recently, he had his green card taken away and he is trying to apply for a visa right now. I am not sure about the details.</p>

<p>Mom, however, does have a job. She is a lunch lady at a nearby middle school just so she won't be bored at home and she likes her boss and the people she worked with. Her salary is obviously not enough to support her three children in a suburban town.</p>

<p>Do I include my father in my financial aid forms? How do I do it? What about the W-2(?) forms needed?</p>

<p>And more general finanical aid questions. Can someone gives me a general summary of how FAFSA and CSS Profile work? And does the college figure the amount of scholarship a student receives into the finanical aid package that it provides? </p>

<p>I am really worry about this especially I am applying to two private (Cornell and NYU, yes I know NYU has very stingy financial aid). Money is a problem especially I have a younger sister (9) to put through college and my older brother is not much of a help.</p>

<p>I have considered asking my high school counselor for help but between club meetings and AP classes, it is almost impossible to schedule anytime with her. So I want to see if I can have some feedback here and then try to talk to my counselor.</p>

<p>Help would be much appreciated.</p>

2

<p>Check out the following link.</p>

<p><a href="http://ifap.ed.gov/sfahandbooks/0506AppVerGuide.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://ifap.ed.gov/sfahandbooks/0506AppVerGuide.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Although this link is for school year 2005/06 and things might change for 2006/2007, lread the instructions in Chapter 2 for questions 35-39 regarding how to fill out FAFSA when parents are not required to file a tax return, or if a parent has to file something other than an IRS form, like a foreign tax return.</p>

<p>Generally speaking, after you file FAFSA, you will receive a SAR (Student Aid Report) which includes your EFC (estimated family contribution). A family’s EFC is a sum of a percentage of four factors: parent’s income, student’s income, parent’s assets, student’s assets. As to parent’s/ student’s income, FAFSA looks at adjusted gross income (AGI) from 1040’s from the previous tax year. For example, for school year 2005/06, FAFSA looks only at parent’s/student’s AGI from 2004. Again, follow the instructions in the above link. Good luck.</p>

3

<p>I would say do a rough draft as best you can following the instructions & schedule a meeting with your HS counselor to go over all of this. It may be a hassle, but if you do it wrong, you may jeopardize your chance to get aid which will be very costly. Good luck!</p>