Not a citizen???!

Paying for College
1

<p>My FAFSA form says this:</p>

<p>The Social Security Administration did not confirm that you are a U.S. citizen. Please provide your financial aid office with documentation of your U.S. citizenship (such as your U.S. Passport, Certificate of Naturalization or Birth Certificate). </p>

<p>***? I am a citizen. Does this mean I have to send my passport to EVERY SINGLE school now? (And complicating the matter is, I applied to more than 10 schools, so now I have to figure this all out before I can do the next ones...)</p>

<p>Also I was selected for verification.</p>

2

<p>The FAFSA website has a link for contacts and questions. Email them or phone them to ask if there is something that you can do to clear this up with them.</p>

<p>You can also email the various financial aid offices and ask what kind of verification they will need. It is likely that photocopies would work, but different institutions might ask for different paperwork.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

3

<p>Being selected by FAFSA for verification does not mean every school will actually select you for verification. Schools have to verify 30% of the FAFSAs they receive. They can select who they want to verify and once they have verified 30% they do not have to verify any more (though dome verify everyone). Do not send anything unless the school requests it.</p>

<p>Have you always been a citizen? Or are you naturalized? There seem to be a few students every year that this happens to. You will need to ask the schools what you must provide to prove citizenship.</p>

4

<p>I’m naturalized. I came here as a toddler and my mom passed the test for citizenship, which means I automatically become one too. But she says I may not be recorded as such by all relevant organizations until I turn 18 for paperwork reasons? I don’t really understand it. She says she’ll make some calls tomorrow and hopefully get some of this figured out. </p>

<p>So… don’t send info for verification unless asked-- through email or something, right? And does this mean I should figure it all out for these 10 before sending the FAFSA to the rest? (not sure how that works actually, I was going to do it today but… guess not)</p>

5

<p>You might want to contact an immigration attorney - I suspect there is paperwork that should have been done years ago that was not completed.</p>