<p>Hey guys. I'm the first student in my family to attend college and I'm doing most of the application process by myself. All of the schools I applied to were need-blind and therefore didn't require a CSS form as part of their main application, so I wasn't sure of the procedure and thought the deadline was MUCH later than it actually was. Needless to say, once I realized, I filled everything out. I'm mailing my tax returns in tomorrow morning and I filled out my FAFSA and CSS this weekend. I also sent an email to the financial aid office of every school I applied to and I'm going to call them tomorrow.</p>
<p>Does anyone know what the procedure is for this? Is there still hope for me to get financial aid? If it helps, the schools in question are Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Stanford, and UChicago. I just got accepted to UChicago on Friday, and saw that the financial aid deadline was passed quite a while ago but I immediately went to fill out my forms. I hope there's a process for reconsideration.</p>
<p>As an aside, I hope you have applied to a safety (academic and financial) in addition to the schools you mention. Those are very difficult schools to get into and many very qualified applicants are denied every year.</p>
<p>Call each financial aid office (as you state you plan to do). I am sure that each one has already prepared financial aid awards for accepted students, so no one here can answer your question if it is “too late.”</p>
<p>You need to contact EACH OF THE SCHOOLS and inquire regarding applying for financial aid. You have missed their deadlines. I don’t know what they will tell you…but they are the ones to answer the question about what to do now.</p>
<p>Did you apply to any financial safety schools or are these the only schools to which you applied?</p>
<p>I’m calling all of them tomorrow when their offices open. I already sent them each an e-mail. I mean, if I had to take out a loan for the first year and then reapply for FA next year, I would rather do that than go to my financial safety school. Luckily, I was accepted to UChicago already and I’m expecting good news from my other schools; does anyone have any personal experience with missed aid deadlines?</p>
<p>It’s too bad you didn’t have any adult guidance in this process. Missing FA deadlines can mean not only no aid for year 1, but some schools have policies that if you didn’t apply for aid on time for freshman year, you must achieve so many credits before you are eligible to apply for FA again. Very tricky. Be prepared for a variety of responses. If you start at UChicago with loans, and then don’t get enough aid for the following year, what will your plan be?</p>