My son received an email from one of the schools he applied to that required him to fill out this form by their EA deadline. It looks like we have to have his signature notarized and send in a copy of his ID. Has anyone been required to fill this out? They said that he was selected for verification when he filled out the FAFSA.
@kelsmom ?
This is a standard verification request when the federal processor determines that identity verification is required. Selection is part of a program to curb financial aid fraud. Every school will eventually ask him to do this.
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What would trigger this type of verification?
Thanks. What I don’t understand is that only one out of the ten schools he applied to has asked for this. They said it is due by November 15th. Why should we run around to get this done if he is only going to one out of the ten schools? It seems to me that this verification should be done once he registers at the school he will be attending.
Well…if a school asks for something now…send it to them NOW. Your son got this from an EA school. Perhaps this EA school looks at financial aid early also for EA students. You won’t get a dime of financial aid unless you complete this verification request.
Note also, waiting can cause significant delays in your kid’s financial aid being processed.
I think you are lucky they are asking for this now.
This is the statement on the form:
“I certify that I ___________________________________________ am the individual signing this Print Student’s Name Statement of Educational Purpose and that the Federal student financial assistance I may receive will only be used for educational purposes and to pay the cost of attending _______________for 2023-2024.”
He hasn’t even been accepted yet and if he is, we haven’t seen what FA package they are offering. Why go to the trouble of doing this if those two events haven’t occurred yet? There is no way I am doing this for ten different schools. If it was one standard document on the FAFSA website, that would make more sense. This is school specific.
Please understand…each school can make the verification request as they choose.
If you don’t do this, your student won’t receive financial aid from that school.
Some schools do not make these requests until much later in the admissions cycle. Sometimes students don’t even know their financial aid packages by May 1, because they verification process has not been completed.
Presumably you hope to get aid from these schools. To get this, you will be required to complete any verification requests received. And quicker is better.
It’s your choice not to do these…but if your student doesn’t get financial aid because if this lack of completion, that is not the college’s fault.
ETA…if your son has a portal on any of his applications, he needs to check there too for verification requests.
@kelsmom what have I missed?
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It is quite likely that the EA school wants to send a FA package with the decision. To do this you will have to complete the form. It isn’t worthwhile speculating why he was chosen.
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@thumper1 is correct. You will not get financial aid if you don’t complete this verification requirement. Each school will request the documentation at some point, because it’s a federal requirement once the processor selects the student for this type of verification. Typically, schools don’t process aid this early, so I’m guessing this is an EA school. They can’t give you the financial aid package until this requirement has been completed.
I have posted at times that verification of finances is not the only type of verification. I actually only dealt with this twice (updated because I remembered another case). In the first case, the student had received aid at a number of schools as an undergraduate, and she happened to be picked when she applied for graduate aid. In her case, I assumed that she was picked because she attended so many schools. In the other case, it was a student who had been a victim of identity theft - I assume he was chosen so that the person who stole his identity could not receive aid in his name. If there was ever any identity theft reported for OP’s child, that could play into it. If not, it just might be some weird thing that triggered the verification - it doesn’t always make sense, but once selected, verification is required.
If you don’t want to complete the request, your child will not get aid. If you don’t want to complete the current request in the required timeframe, it’s quite possible that your child will miss out on financial aid at that school due to not complying with their internal deadline (when verification is pending, most schools won’t package aid). It’s your choice, but the choice has consequences.
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Thanks for your replies. My son was never the victim of identity theft. This is the first time he has ever applied to any college. It just seems VERY inefficient to have him fill out the same form ten times (he applied EA to ten schools) when he could simply fill it out once, have his signature notarized, and upload it to the FAFSA website since they were the ones who initiated this process. I might lose my mind if I have to do this ten times.
Look to see if you can find each school’s form online. Then you can do all ten at once with the notary.
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Don’t do it. See what happens.
Actually…no. The initiation of this process began because something on your FAFSA didn’t align. FAFSA didn’t initiate…they responded.
I agree with @Eeyore123 . See if you can find all of the forms, and get them notarized at the same time. Send them when requested by each college.
You just want to get this done…as not doing so very much jeopardizes your kid’s chances of receiving financial aid in a timely fashion. And if you don’t do it…there will be no aid at all.
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Is there any private info on this ? If so, I would contact the school. Have him. Make sure the form is legit. ID theft mechanisms come in all shapes and sizes so I would not add an ss# for example without validating legitimacy.
Assuming it is legit, your risk is to not have the form signed. In that case you likely won’t get federal financial aid from that school.
It’s not a matter of what you find convenient. Rather it’s an issue of what they require.
Getting a notary isn’t a huge deal. It’s 10 mins. You can make an appointment at a bank (sometimes walk in works but not always) or hit a UPS store for a small fee.
Your son chose schools for a reason. So I assume you want to stay in. But if not and you are fearful others will ask similar, you can redo your list to apply to schools that offer high merit, thus making federal aid as listed irrelevant. Note what you sent says federal aid which is usually the $5500 loan, work study and pell grants I believe.
Why is this so problematic? It’s a simple form and going to a notary is not usually a big deal. It might be costly, though, as notaries usually charge. But no one is asking him to write a new essay or do anything particularly time consuming.
Students get randomly chosen for all kinds of verification. My son was randomly chosen to verify something that he wrote about in his UC essay and that required getting a signed letter from his guidance counselor on official letterhead. These things happen.
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She included the contents of the form upstream. No SS was mentioned. @kelsmom says this is something that can happen when this verification is requested.
I saw the form but I wasn’t sure if it was a portion or all.
That’s why I noted it’s about federal aid and not aid in general.
And remember, some colleges that use only the FAFSA use that data to award their institutional grants as well. So it’s not JUST federally funded aid. Plus, if a FAFSA is a required submission for any need based aid, without verification completed, the FAFSA will not be deemed “completed”.
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I’ve looked at all of the portals for the other schools and none of them require any other FA forms. The only reason I knew about this one was because this particular school emailed him. It doesn’t even show up as required on their portal. No SSN is needed. I emailed the school at their FA email address and they emailed me to say it was legit. I’d love to get them all done at once but without access to each school’s form, it is not an option.
I wish I could find out what didn’t align that triggered this. All of our tax info came from the IRS website and I don’t have any other assets. I don’t own a home or anything else other than my car.