<p>My Freshman child filled out her FAFSA using numbers I gave her. I want to look at it. I need help doing this.</p>
<p>The FAFSA website has "Open your saved FAFSA" as one of it's options. The "your" bothers me, as it's hers not mine. Still, this seems the right place.</p>
<p>Following that link, it lets me choose this year, last year, etc. I make my choice.</p>
<p>It goes through browser requirements. Then there's a login. For "Your password" I give my child's. Up comes the login page again, now with links at the bottom. Doesn't say Wrong Password, though that's implied by this being the login. Does it know from cookies or something that I'm the parent? Or maybe there is no "saved" FAFSA because it's completed and submitted. I'm lost.</p>
<p>This may sound stupid but why didn’t you read the FAFSA before you SIGNED IT with your PIN (the parent PIN)? YOUR (the parent) PIN number is used to sign verifying that YOUR (the parent’s) information is accurate. I wouldn’t sign my kid’s FAFSA unless I read it…and I wouldn’t let my kids sign until they read it…if you follow that. Since we BOTH had to sign…we both had to know WHAT we were signing.</p>
<p>Ask your child to sit down with you to log into the FAFSA website. OR did your child print out a copy of her FAFSA when she submitted it? She should have!! Ask to see that.</p>
<p>Was the FAFSA submitted yet? If you haven’t submitted it with your FAFSA Pin, you want “saved” FAFSA. If you have, then you want “corrected.” </p>
<p>Perhaps you made the incorrect choice at the drop down menu.</p>
<p>Incidentally, such an important financial document should not be filled out by a student by themselves. In fact, my kids only see the FAFSA at my house when I determine it is ready to submit.</p>
<p>My kids don’t read the FAFSA when I submit it. They aren’t even here. They did apply for PIN numbers a couple years ago, but they rely on me to fill it out and submit it. Personally, I wouldn’t want my kids to do it because I’m not confident they would do it correctly. If they were here it would be easy for them to review it before signing it, but since they’re not it’s just not practical.</p>
<p>One thing that is a bit of a hassle is having a son 3000 miles aways at college and needing to get things physically signed by him. I did figure out this year to get him to sign some blank federal and state tax forms when he was home for winter break. Then in February I can get them filled out and submitted (his w-2s and 1098T come here). But there is also a signiture required on the dependency worksheet that must go to IDOC with everything else, and also a signature required on an additional FA form his college requires. It’s an inefficient process sending hard copies back and forth in the mail!</p>
<p>'rentof2, I forge my D’s signature all the time on checks to be deposited, tax forms, etc, and like you do the FAFSA and submit it without her around. I do a pretty good imitation of her signature. (I also do a good imitation of my H’s!)</p>
<p>You don’t have to forge signatures to deposit checks. you only have to write “for deposit only” on the signature line on the back…and then deposit the checks.</p>
<p>Near as I can see, there is no View Your FAFSA option. Nor is there a View Your Child’s FAFSA. What you gotta guess is that you can view a FAFSA by pretending to want to correct it. This is under</p>
<ol>
<li> FAFSA Follow-up</li>
</ol>
<p>I could not view or correct the recently submitted FAFSA because it “is waiting to be processed”. Transactions (submission is likely a transaction) "are typically processed within three days.</p>
<p>Viewing the child’s printed copy is not easy, as she is far away, at the University.</p>
<p>thumper1, the parents signature is not a promise that the FAFSA is accurate. It only agrees “if asked: 1. to provide information that will verify the accuracy of your [sic] completed form 2. to provide US or state income tax forms …” That’s from my copy of the form I printed and mailed in.</p>
<p>I can’t help but wonder if the widespread practice of parents knowing and using their children’s PINs accounts for the blurring of parent and child on the FAFSA website.</p>
<p>The philosophical sense is that the FAFSA is the STUDENT’s FAFSA, that is, it is the STUDENT’s application for financial aid. Of course all of us parents are intimately connected with the process, but in general the “you” refers to the student, as it is the student applying for aid. </p>
<p>But cut to the chase: I am a College Counselor at a local HS. First of all, get your kid to print what they submittted–it should be 3 pages, lots of small lines. Blank lines as well and that is mostly OK. Second, with your child’s SSN, DOB, password (PLEASE don’t lose it!!) and/or PIN, you can access most of the links on the home FAFSA page. I track all these things for students (learned that from kelsmom, Thanks!) since they always lose them. You need the same PIN every year, but the password is specific year by year and correction (transaction) by transaction (just use the same password though–K.I.S.S.)</p>
<p>Hint–anyone with that information can see the FAFSA, and some need to to check veracity of information. The computer doesn’t know who is sitting at the keyboard. </p>
<p>I hardly EVER see parents, students I work with are mostly taking full responsibility for this and do it all on their own. Better system than finding AWOL parents out on the street, in past years of the paper FAFSA.</p>
<p>Huh? If you’ve submitted the FAFSA then you can view everything on the SAR no need to pretend anything. Just go in, put your student’s info you can view or print. It makes sense to me that you use the student info because if you have more than one student you have more than one SAR. If you’re in process you should be able to open it as if you are going to correct and go through the entire form parent and student. When it is ready to submit both pins must be entered, parent and student. Doesn’t matter who does it or if both do it singly, but both are required. There is no “blurring” there is a parent section and a section for the student but the end result is basically one form for each student. Parent info stays the same on both forms. When you print you can see easily that it is one report with two sections. Its’ pretty straightforward. You use the same pin each year, so I have ours and our kids pins stapled into my tax file so I can retrieve it each year.</p>
<p>A submitted FAFSA locks for about 3 days, so there is nothing you can do until it has been processed. Then go to #3 of the options, and choose the LAST option at the lower right hand corner–“Check status of a processed FAFSA” I think it is. Then use whatever information it asks for (of the stuff you have written down, Post #9) and get the thing. You will see a thin line, one line, with date submitted, date processed, EFC, and so forth. The FIRST thing on the left is a "Transaction "–just a number one, but THAT is the hot link to get thru to the actual FAFSA with all the info that has been entered. Click there and you will get a more vertically laid out screen, with specific and basic information (again, your EFC, and CHECK if there is a little asterisk by that number, which means you have been randomly selected for Verification and will need to send tax forms and other information to colleges --annoying but not onerous) about what has been submitted.</p>
<p>You can correct the FAFSA as many times as you need to–well, several times. Each correction needs to be signed with both PINs, and locks for 3 days, and then appears as a “transaction” (number 2, 3, etc.) and you can click the hot link to see it.</p>
<p>It will be OK! Just remember the 3 day lock time each time you do it. I think schools can’t see it either, so if they ask for corrections be timely!</p>
<p>Thanks for helping me understand this. I didn’t know the SAR had more than EFC and list of granted monies.</p>
<p>I went in and looked at last year’s SAR/FAFSA. The blurring that bugs me is present when one clicks on the “View and Print Your Student Aid Report” link. Up comes a page called “Student Access”. No mention of Parent Access. Nothing like [Parents click here]. Isn’t this presuming parents just pretend to be students?</p>
<p>Anyway, I did see the SAR has all the FAFSA info.</p>
<p>Zatoici, yup you are thinking “too hard.” You could hire someone to put the information in or train a chimp, does it really matter as long as it matches the parent taxes and the kid taxes and/or finanical info? It’s just a form. The reason it is sorts under the “Kid” instead of the adult is because many families have more than one kid in college and the FAFSAs are “separate” for each kid…parent content is the same.</p>