<p>when colleges receive the fafsa, do they know the order we put them in. i got a letter from one of my schools saying that because i did not put them down as my first choice, i am not able to get state funding, etc.for attending said school. what i am more concerned about is my other schools to which i have not yet been accepted (or received a decision), do they see that they were not written first and therefore would not consider me seriously for their school/ hurt my chances? this seems rather unfair as im sure many people have many top choices and there is only one slot for it, and the 2 schools i wrote for my top two are not my top choices but rather schools i have already been accepted to. any insight ?</p>
<p>I have never heard this one. I would redo the FAFSA putting that school first, and tell the school that there was no particular order when you originally filed the FAFSA, and that the two schools you put down first were the ones that had already accepted you.</p>
<p>I don't generally ask this; but what school is this? I am very curious about this situation.</p>
<p>I know that we were told to list our state schools first on FAFSA even if they were not our first choices. Could this be why I was told to do this? We live in PA.</p>
<p>Nanc</p>
<p>In Tennessee, where we have recently begun a lottery to fund scholarships, we must put a Tennessee school first to get any sort of aid, including the lottery scholarships. I realized this just a couple of days ago and was very grateful to have done the FAFSA on line so I could reorganize the choices. I still don't quite see why the state folks who divvy out the aid can't just look down a list to see if an in-state school is on there, but that is not the way it works.</p>
<p>A note: Previously I had just listed the schools in alphabetical order, thinking that might make order of preference less obvious.</p>
<p>thanks for sharing ur perspectives on this, i did put two in state schools first, and the school that had a problem with this was a small local art school. would the ivy league schools care? because many people get into more than one ivys and obviously can put them all as their first choice. and i called the fafsa office and they told me that schools know if they're not listed first but do not know in what place they are listed in.</p>
<p>Last year during a FinAid night at school one of the parents asked the speaker about the order of the colleges on the FAFSA. He said if we were applying to schools in our state (NJ) we should list them first starting with the most expensive one. Nobody followed up the question and he didn't explain why. Looking back, if I had been active on CC back then I would have probably asked.</p>
<p>Has anyone ever heard of this? Does the order really make a difference?</p>
<p>Apparently, it does. Depends on the school. Guess that is another question to ask financial aid of each school. Wonder if correcting the FAFSA and putting another school first would do the job which would entail multiple FAFSA corrections--with each school that cares being on top. What a royal pain!</p>
<p>I first ran across this mentality when one of my kids was taking the Co-op exams which are the Catholic highschool version of the SSATs. You can choose 3 schools on the form to get the results. Well, my son just randomly penciled in the codes for three choices. Got accepted at the two most selective schools and was rejected at the least selective school. The reason given in the rejection letter was that they picked kids who listed that school as first or second choice. It was really ridiculous that he was rejected as his stats were very high and he got scholarship offers from both first and second listed schools. But he did get a lot less money on the school he listed second, and I know he had to have had one of the top scores. The crazy thing is that I am sure that kids put down the order for any random reason, as they were not told to put the schools in order of choice. Of course, I am pretty sure that if we had called the school that rejected him, and told them that we were indeed serious about sending him there, in fact, it is the first choice, they would have reconsidered him. Not worth pursuing as it was not a preferred choice, but not because of the order it was listed--I do believe it was alphabetical.</p>
<p>bump..............</p>
<p>oh that's stupid -_-</p>
<p>Yes, it does, according to the director of Financial Aid at Cal Tech.
He leads an excellent yearly workshop for senior HS parents on filling out the FAFSA. I also wished I had asked him to explain why, but here is what he said:</p>
<p>On the first line put the most expensive 4-yr college in your state, to which you are applying.
List the next five colleges based on their deadline for the FAFSA. Put the one with the earliest deadline as number two, and the one with the latest deadline as number six.</p>
<p>TaraMom - thanks for replying. I guess it does make a difference. The info you gave is pretty much along the same lines as what we were told.</p>
<p>Wow, who would have thought!? Should we all now submit corrections? I know that we did not use any particular order. What about the school that didn't "fit" on the first round...are thyey >7th or are they 1st again?</p>
<p>lfk725 - like jamimom said making all those corrections would be royal pain! And IMO, who really knows if it would make a difference at this point?</p>
<p>Your comment about #7 becoming #1 -- that's interesting! I would think it would, because it would be a different "transaction". But then again, I'm no expert, just think it makes sense that it would... then again "sense" is something that most of this whole college admission/finaid process doesn't always make!</p>
<p>That IS an interesting question--anybody have ideas?</p>
<p>I think the order I mentioned above was exactly designed to maximize state funding such as Cal Grants, so if one school had an early deadline you'd certainly want them listed near the top. </p>
<p>If schools are sending out letters saying you didn't get funding because they weren't listed first, maybe that's why, not because they feel slighted in some way.</p>
<p>Well, if the order mattered, we totally missed that paragraph of instructions! Do you think that a college's financial aid office would tell me the truth if I inquired about this order issue? Do you think that the person fielding questions would even know? I'd be willing to call around....</p>
<p>when i asked about this over the phone with FAFSA specialist, he didnt know anything about this order thing.</p>
<p>For most colleges it doesn't matter. The order on the FAFSA thing is a red herring.</p>
<p>It does make a difference for state scholarships in that the state agency processing your award may assume you are planning on attending college #1 and simply award you based on that choice. If you wind up attending a different college it is usually as easy as simply contacting your state aid agency to change their records. You may want to inquire of your state scholarship agency if you have questions about it.</p>
<p>By the way, there was some research a ways back that indicated over 75% of students listed colleges on the FAFSA in order of preference (from most wanted to least wanted). Some colleges may look at that to gain an idea of your preference, and -- by the way -- we can see what order you list them in.</p>
<p>At my school, we do not do anything with the FAFSA order.</p>
<p>I think if you list it alphabetically, you should be safe. It's a legitimate way of organizing.</p>