I filled out the fafsa and it said it had been processed and sent to the schools. I filled it out online. I’m wondering how long till I hear from the colleges I sent it to and should I reach out to them in the meantime?
Typically, after you apply to your schools and are ** accepted**, the schools will provide you with a financial aid offer based on how you responded on the FAFSA. This typically happens in the Spring.
Then, you can compare the offers and see what you can afford. Each school will have variables, such that no offers will be the same. You can look up the costs and estimate how much it may cost by using the NPCs (net price calculators) at each school site.
So if the financial aid offer doesn’t come till spring why do they want people to fill it out early?
Schools have thousands of applicants. It takes time to process the forms and decide financial awards.
Also…some forms of federally funded need based aid have limited funding per college campus. These awards are offered to those who qualify on a first come/first served basis. This includes federal work study, SEOG, Perkins Loans.
So filing early could be advantageous for you.
And some states have limited aid funds which can run out.