“Good afternoon Justin,
The Claremont McKenna College (CMC) Office of Admission has notified us that you are an Early Decision I prospective student. November 1 was the deadline to submit all of your financial aid application materials to the CMC Office of Financial Aid. It is not too late to complete your file. Please review the information below to help determine which items remain outstanding.
As of this morning, we have received your 2018-2019 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and your 2018-2019 CSS Profile. However, you should have received/be receiving an email request from College Board for your IDOC packet. Please submit your IDOC packet to College Board IDOC service immediately. There is normally a 3-5 day lag time from the time you upload the IDOC packet.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.
Sincerely,
B____________________ (leaving this anonymous)
Assistant Director of Financial Aid”
Hello everyone,
I’m a ED 1 applicant to Claremont McKenna College and I just got this email yesterday.
I’m very confused to what this email means. I checked CMC’s website and it said not to request an IDOC packet UNLESS the financial aid office notifies you to. Also CMC has need-blinds admissions so wouldn’t the only way they see my FAFSA is if I get admitted? Does this mean I got in? Because why would the financial aid office take time to notify me about this if I was denied or deferred. Please help a confused man haha.
My daughter got an email from the College Board indicating which documents had to be uploaded for which colleges by what deadline. I think it’s just another box that must be checked in order for your application to be deemed complete.
@taverngirl What colleges did she apply to? Was a submission of IDOC mandatory for all those colleges? Because for CMC it said only submit the IDOC if the financial aid office tells you to.
They calculate FA for everyone who applies for it. How could they send out the FA packages with acceptances if they didn’t get the info from everyone who asked for it?
@CValle@intparent I see what you guys are saying. It’s just that for the college I’m applying to specifically, IDOC was never a requirement. In fact, on their website, it says to only submit IDOC when requested to do so by the financial aid office. And why is the financial aid office for a need-blind school communicating with me in the first place? Sorry my anxiety has been acting up.
Because they need your documents to create an aid package in case they admit you. No one can make a choice whether to attend if they applied for FA without seeing the FA offer, right? You couldn’t decide whether to accept an ED offer without seeing it (not an RD offer if you were in that pool). So they have to have the offers ready for ED applicants around the time when acceptances go out.
Colleges rarely mention IDOC on the initial FA page – they don’t want everyone getting all fussed when it is too early to send documents through it.
Don’t read too much into it, but do what they’ve asked – get your IDOC documents submitted. If you haven’t got the IDOC email yet, you should follow up on that.
There are two SEPARATE office that each have a job to do right now.
The admissions office is evaluating your application. They are checking for certain things - application, essays, SAT scores, etc.
The financial aid office is evaluating your financial aid situation. They are checking for certain things - FAFSA or CSS or whatever. In your case something triggered a request for IDOC, or perhaps they randomly request IDOC from a certain percentage of applicants (like being selected for an extra pat down at the airport.)
These two operate independently at a need-blind school.
But, once the admissions decisions are made, the financial aid package has to be ready to send out.
Ok, so breathe! Do what they asked. Submit the documents.
@CValle@intparent I appreciate both of your feedback a lot. I’m just so anxious lol.
Would a college really take the time to send a personal email to every single applicant? Notice how mine isn’t like your daughters.The email is literally from the financial aid office of the school and it’s not a general email stating that CMC wants my IDOC. It’s literally the financial aid representative of the college. Also, why would the office of admission communicate with the financial aid office for a need-blind school before the decisions are even out? My guess is that the pool of admitted students transition to the financial aid office because I find it illogical for the office to request every student’s IDOC information even if they get denied. IDOC is specifically for the financial aid package no? So why would the school care otherwise if they knew the student was denied because wouldn’t that just be a waste of time and effort? Isn’t the fact that they received my FAFSA yesterday morning when I sent it 2 months ago fishy? What about their website? Where it says only to send IDOC when told to do so, as in not everyone will be told to do so. I know I’m diving way to into this but these circumstances are really tripping me off.
Things like this are possibly good signs, and possibly completely meaningless as far as whether you got in. A few points:
-Maybe your financial aid application doesn’t make it clear you are applying ED. The admissions office might just need to tell financial aid “Here are all the people applying ED we will need packages shortly for if they get in.”
-Saying we have this “as of this morning” doesn’t necessarily mean they just got it yesterday. It just means that’s what they have today.
-I think the need-blind part is irrelevant. There’s no indication the admissions office wants to know how much financial aid you need as part of their decision. They’re just telling financial aid who is applying ED.
-It could be that the financial aid office asks for IDOC for anybody where they think something will need to verified before they can deliver a package.
I know it’s a stressful time! Certainly there’s a chance this means something good. But trying to guess the exact procedure of admissions and financial aid is not likely to give you any certainty. Last year, my D got an email from Brandeis financial aid asking her to verify a specific line in her aid application one week before getting waitlisted. It could have worked out that email meant something, but it didn’t.
The positive thing is that whether they are trying to have verified info for everybody or just those accepted, at least they’ll have yours if you are accepted.
@Wilson98@CValle@intparent Ok new update. The financial aid office just emailed me 2 more times. One time was to REMIND me again to submit the IDOC like 3 days after the first IDOC email and the other one was them telling me they received my IDOC but my parents messed something up and they asked for them to fix it. Are THESE good signs?
Still nothing to look too much into. Some schools (not sure about CMC) make aid packages for ALL applicants. It’s likely that CMC does this as well because they meet full need. I mean it’s not a BAD sign. Maybe look at CMC applicant threads from previous years and see if this happened to anyone else and if they were accepted/deferred/rejected. Good luck!
@JLBball5 Correlation doesn’t necessarily equate causation- just wanted to point out that that type of email could easily be a nicely written form email (and the way it was worded seemed that you simply forgot to submit something they need).