I was selected for verification which was completed six weeks ago. Sap was also checked and verified a month ago. No issues there.
Month later, still no FA award letter so I called the school up and they told me my file was in line to be reviewed by a FA counselor to make sure I wasn’t going over the 600% limit for the Pell Grant. Something about they were trying to avoid an overpayment for my FA. Is that normal to get an individual review? Wouldn’t they have checked all that with my file before? I am not over the limit, I keep careful track and I about 400% or so at the moment for Pell. I’m asking because I filed early, got everything in on time and this is my last year at the school. Any insight would be appreciated. Thank you.
That should be “I am about 400%” sorry.
Any chance this is a tech/community college? They are notoriously bad about taking a long time to get someone packaged. It seems like a really long time to me. 2-4 weeks for verification to be completed is normal in peak season. But then awarding should be right after.
I know many places their computer systems can check things like LEU, etc which don’t really even require humans. It sounds like you may be at a small school without sophisticated awarding programs OR they forgot to award you and didn’t want to admit it.
I’d be asking for an Asst Director or Director to find out why you aren’t awarded yet if verification was truly completed 6 weeks ago.
It’s a four year university. They said the file moved on to one of the counselor’s and that it would take nine more weeks from the time the verification was finished to be checked against my Pell Grant % so I am not accidentally overpaid. This is to be finished two weeks before classes actually start which I find absolutely ridiculous. This has been going on since March.
But of background: Before all of the verification started (a few weeks before the forms were formally submitted) I did do a correction to my fafsa to make sure that I hadn’t missed anything during the original filing. Turns out I missed the “paid on your behalf” part, so I corrected it.
There’s a part of the fafsa where they ask about money paid on your behalf, instead of the amount tor the year 2016, I put double that because I was given the wrong information (someone told me you had to enter every cent received from 2016 to this year which more than doubled the amount of money I received in 2016). I corrected the mistake shortly after that, it brought my EFC back to 0 where it had been since I filed the fafsa back in Dec. I have all the checks and bank statements to prove that amount and they never asked for any of that, they just wanted IRS forms and a verification sheet.
If this is the issue, wouldn’t this have come up during the verification process? Wouldn’t I have been asked to submit bank records to prove the figure for money received was the right amount? I even told them about the mistake I made (I even made a post here asking for help about it) .
I would just hate to miss out because I made an honest mistake and tried to correct it.
You won’t miss out. Pell is an entitlement, so if you are entitled to it, you will get it. If you know you’ve only received it for 8 semesters so far (400%), you still have some room. They’ve told you the audit will be done before your bill is due, so I think you are good.
Thank you. I hope everything comes through in the end.
I am guessing that your school has a policy that requires students whose Pell LEU exceeds a certain % to be manually reviewed so the award is correct. This is in your best interest, because you won’t be awarded more than you are eligible to receive (this forum is filled with posts about being mad that aid was adjusted downward after initial awards). Manual review is time-consuming, and the school probably only has one person trained to do the Pell review. Financial aid offices are usually understaffed and overworked, so it just takes time. If you are eligible for the full Pell, you will get it when all is said & done.
Thank you Kelsmom for explaining it fully. I was worried because school starts the last week of August and I’m not used to my FA being so up in the air. They are backed up by about nine weeks it seems, but it’s a large university (40,000 students) so it’s not surprising.
I used to work at a school with 30,000 students, so I definitely understand the back ups your school is experiencing. I know it’s very unsettling for you, and that is stressful.