<p>I'm very curious about how other parents are able to meet the Feb 1 financial aid deadlines that most schools have. I did the fafsa and the cc profile the first week of January using taxes from 2008. These had to be completely modified once the real numbers started coming in and now have to be modified once again now that the information is final. My husband owns his own business so it wasn't as easy as handing in a w-2 and being done with it. Other paperwork trickled in well into february from mutual funds and the like. The accountant just called today to say everything is (finally) done and the taxes are complete. He was aware that that we needed the taxes done for the financial aid process - but, he says he couldn't get them done any faster since all the paperwork (from third parties) didn't arrive until the end of february.</p>
<p>My w-2 didn't arrive until January 31. So how did everyone else get their paperwork done by Feb 1?</p>
<p>Ours wasn’t complicated - we only needed to wait for W-2s and were fortunate they came before 1/31. Otherwise though you use estimates and do what you did which isn’t ideal but colleges certainly are aware of such limitations and I’m certain they have seen such issues before. The best thing though I think is to call the individual financial aid offices in these circumstances and ask how they’d best want the information and when.</p>
<p>I only had one W2 so as soon as I received it (January 19th) I was able to do my taxes and FAFSA. I had done an estimated CSS Profile by November 1st so the next day I hand-wrote my corrections on the CSS and sent it in to the schools that required it. So my financial situation is very simple and therefore the financial aid forms were simple as well.</p>
<p>It was only the first year that we needed to submit so early. Now that D is enrolled, we have until April to fill out the forms! The first year, I gathered all the information off the internet so I could do a really good estimate of our taxes. We didn’t have W-2’s and 1099’s, but I had all the numbers. We don’t have our own business to worry about though.</p>
<p>We have our own business, and it was a huge PITA to get everything done in time.
Normally we don’t have to file our S corp tax returns until fall, so we’ve always filed for an extension for our personal 1040s (because we needed the income info from the S corp first).</p>
<p>So this year we got our stuff into the business accountant at the end of January (after I beat my poor DH into submission because it has been his job to get all the financial data ready for the accountant). Then after getting that back mid-February I drove it and some other documents over to the personal accountant to do the 1040’s.</p>
<p>On February 26th or so I called up the personal accountant, who told me that he was waiting for some more documents from DH. More beatings ensued after I let DH know that I REALLY REALLY had to have the 1040s done by March 1st so that I could send them in to IDOC. Which I did.</p>
<p>DH has finally recovered from said beatings, and we both look forward to future years when things won’t have to be in early. </p>
<p>I wonder if the CSS Profile would include giving consideration for marriage counseling costs…</p>
<p>Seriously, though, I feel really sorry for kids who don’t have the support of their parents to get all the paperwork together. Navigating the paperwork maze was difficult for me, and I deal with paperwork all the time.</p>
<p>yes - your situation was more like mine! Lots of confusion, and lots of pleading with DH and the accountant. It’s all done now - but what a pain this was. There was no way this could have been done by Feb 1st. </p>