Wasn’t there a story last year of a mix up with twins where they combined the files? If you don’t hear anything soon, I would inquire just to make sure there wasn’t any issue. I’ll see if I can find the old thread.
@scoutmom2002 That is super exciting! I am originally from Virginia and we have a great friend who graduated from there but did not go the military route. He is very successful in the IT field.
@Darcy123 This would not surprise me at all. It happens everywhere we go with two with the same birth date.
@Momofmanytoo I agree with the previous posts - give it another week or two then follow up.
I did the FAFSA last night. The EFC is just ridiculous - ours is over a third of our take home pay.
@Johnny523 - we did the FAFSA Forecast for VMI to get our EFC and realized that the EFC # is for all 4 yrs. Divided by fours years you get your annual EFC.
One thing that I plan to do based off of friends’ past experience is every year to recalculate to see if the EFC goes down, if it does go down you can apply for more financial aid. For example, if one spouse retires or gets laid off.
@scoutmom2002 No, it’s for this year. VMI must be doing something different on their site if they are saying it is for all four years.
Ok… so FAFSA, it’s been a few years since I had to do this. What can I expect? What kind of data do I need to have on hand?
@Momofmanytoo I actually did it yesterday and it was not too bad. I was able to link to my tax return information with the IRS so that auto-filled many of the questions. It probably took me about 1-1.5 hours. But, we do not have a lot of financial information to complete, just the basics.
@meredithfp I hate to break it but please do check the Common Data Set for UW at https://www.washington.edu/opb/uw-data/external-reporting/common-data-set/ This combo likely isn’t going to work because GPA holds Very Important weight and SAT only Important weight (CDS-C, C7) & the C11 data on GPA speaks for itself.
It was a very hard lesson in reality for us too and I work for UW!
First timer here too and I was surprised the IRS link import didn’t include all the financial information we slogged through entering on our taxes; we still had to input some info from our W2s. Thank goodness I could easily find them. I laughed when I saw our EFC - I wish!! Ah well…
We are shelling out like 50% of our take-home with two kids. It’s unreal. How is theis even possible? You have to read the blog “The wallet years: the worst stage of parenting”. Just google that. Hilarious and so so true.
The “wallet years” is referring to the HS stage when we are forking gobs of money for the whole college search and application process. It is one quotable line after another, but the one about the tuition is one that hits home right now as I just had kid #2 start college.
“There is some good news about the Wallet Years. Once the college tuition bill arrives, the world will go still. It will make every expense you’ve ever had for your kids seem like a joke.”
@Johnny523 – I used the FAFSA Forecaster: https://fafsa.ed.gov/spa/fafsa4c/?locale=en_US&_ga=2.20450872.1664369751.1570201060-803055838.1569942610#/landing
But when I did it again it did give me the annual EFC, so I must have done it incorrectly the first time.
So now the annual EFC even with twins is still $30K for each. That’s insane. Which is why with twins we still have the requirement that they stay in-state and public.
D has sent apps to three SLACs, two of which are test optional (she has a 24 ACT and 1160 SAT and refused to take either again). One of them set up an interview with her for next week in lieu of testing. She interviews well, so not sending in test scores was a no-brainer there! If none of these three schools are a go, she’ll RD at several more in December/Janary. It’s a little more complicated since she’s applying as a music BA and most of her schools require auditions or recordings. I’ll share more once she gets decisions… I know that a couple are rumored to decide early for strong candidates so maybe she’ll get lucky!
I am embarrassed to admit that one kid has more than ten schools she is applying to. FAFSA only allows ten listed. If you’ll notice, there’s a way to rank them (move up and down). I’ve been told that colleges use this to analyze cross apps. This makes it obvious that they look at this enough to potentially analyze the ranking of the schools. Did any of you strategize this when filing FAFSA? With the competitive schools whose apps have not yet been submitted, will this be a factor?Maybe I’m overthinking it.
I thought the FAFSA said that the schools would get all the information Except the list of other schools. Am I wrong?
I’m not sure. I didn’t read that. But I’m interested in knowing. The cross app info came from my husband who worked in higher ed admin not too long ago. Still curious why they would make them rankable. I don’t like that they may use this to gauge where they stand with a potential applicant and how that applicant might affect their yield.
Dept. Of Education no longer releases FAFSA list of your schools to the schools. Change made a few years ago.
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/fafsa/filling-out
"You can list up to 10 schools online or in the mobile app or up to four schools on a FAFSA PDF. (You can add more schools to your FAFSA form later.) Schools you list on the application will automatically receive your FAFSA results electronically.
Note: Schools will not be able to see which other schools you listed on your FAFSA form."
Thanks @Hippobirdy !
I haven’t started FAFSA yet, ugh. DD15 didn’t get anything so I am not positive but I know I have to do it this first year for other scholarship possibilities.
DS20 did get invited to apply for the HC at his first choice- app not done yet so I am not sure what this based on - but he is excited. I hope he can get the essays done by this weekend, I am ready to hit send!