Yeah like Gatormama listed out there are really no reasons to wait to submit. Schools really can’t calculate FA until after their systems are updated with what ever new info comes out every year and those updates don’t normally come out until late September at the earliest. At my school they don’t run FA for EA until early December once everything is in place.
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Hmm, this has given me something to think about. The only rolling admissions schools on the list are either: parent employers (so free tuition, and happen to be total admissions safeties), or Tuition Exchange schools that cover the full cost of tuition (scholarship offer may not come for quite a while anyway).
When I’ve run the NPC with and without our finances, our need has made a difference at some places, since our EFC would only be $25K based on last year’s formula. He does have 2 schools on the list that use CSS profile so maybe those would be good ideas for early apps. Though I’m pretty sure we have to wait on the Tuition Exchange liason to give the go-ahead first.
I am worried about the teachers getting the letters in early, so maybe I’ll talk with S23 about how he feels about submitting some earlier apps. Thanks for the suggestions!
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The go ahead to apply? I wouldn’t think so. I’m at a TE school and applied for my D17 and applying and getting accepted are totally separate from TE. Once you’ve been accepted then TE comes into play.
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I got my SSN validated today(took one day). Once you create FSA ID, it goes to validation. FSA ID is needed for both student and parent. I would encourage all to complete this step as its required for FAFSA.
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Okay, I’m just going of of what our colleagues have told us they did for TE. They get the list of schools cleared with the home institution TE liason first, and then submit the college apps after that. We can’t afford those schools without TE, so applying will be a total waste if the liason doesn’t approve it. It shouldn’t be a problem at our particular school, since they are generous with approvals, but it is a little confusing how the process is supposed to work!
Obviously I would go with whatever instructions your school has but the ‘approval’ is most likely just a confirmation that the schools are still TE schools. One of the schools my D17 applied stop being a TE member the year she applied (Smith College) and was still listed on the website.
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I’ll chime in and say that if your kid is otherwise ready to send in an application, I can think of precisely three reasons that they should hold off on clicking submit (aside, of course, from the obvious one of “not sure they want to go there”):
- You’re waiting on an application fee waiver code
- Grades have been marginal and so you need senior fall grades to push things up
- You’re waiting on ACT/SAT scores and the college goes by self-reported scores
There are probably a couple others, but as long as you can reasonably easily afford the application fees I can’t think of any financial aid application-related items that could be put on the list.
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Our kid is waiting to start applying because his senior year class schedule has not been worked out yet. He has 5 classes on his schedule, but still needs to meet with a GC to figure out what he can fit in the 6th slot (there were a lot of schedule conflicts this year).
I didn’t see many on the list that do actually cover the full tuition. Most max out at 40k and the schools we are looking at mostly cost more than that.
Yeah, there’s not a ton that do full tuition, or they’re really small or not well known. I’m referring to Pitt and Delaware, which are both around $34K because they’re public. MSOE is only $43K so it’s a small amount not covered.
Blergh. You are all talking about applications and the fafsa and my family is so not there yet. We’re doing a college visit trip at the end of August. D23 just went to book her senior picture and all the times were taken - I’m not ready for summer to end to and to have to deal with school stuff. She’s taking the SAT the last weekend in August. I will set myself a goal of Sept 1 to start engaging with any of my parental duties regarding applying. I’m a pretty organized person, hoping we can make this process not too terribly painful. And it will be a “we” process. D23’s public school guidance counselor is not a resource, I hope she does her part in a timely fashion. I’m happy to handle the financials, and answer questions about the common app (I have no idea what it looks like) and critique/proofread her essays. She’s a very good writer - I think. She’s an only child so we’ll be one and done! The only thing I don’t like about having an only is that you do things - like apply to colleges - acquire all sorts of experience and knowledge - and then never use that knowledge again!
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Quick note - you can filter TE selections to just show schools offering full tuition.
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I am, but I don’t visit much. I am part of several groups. It is painful to see unprepared people are to take on college expenses, and the majority of people seem to think EFC is all you have to pay for college and expect FAFSA to give them money. I am on my 4th and last starting college, and I really cant wait to be all done.
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Would you happen to know if the FSA ID I created for Thing 1 back in 2018 is still valid? Or do I need to create a new one for each Thing?
He is in the same boat but didn’t want to wait for the schedule for a couple of rolling schools. He put in last year’s classes and plans to email an update to admissions when he gets the schedule. He’s a week away from returning to school at this point; kind of annoying!
I am doing this for the 1st time but from what I read, FSA ID is permanent (Can be used for other kids also). Each kid needs to create their own FSA ID.
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When I did that, there were about 3. We are mostly using the CIC which does full tuition.
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Did you use this site? Because when I did a search for full tuition schools, there were four in Alabama alone and 12 in states that begin with the letter A. I did not go through the whole list, but it seemed pretty lengthy.
Depends on how limited is your budget/ important scholarships are, at least to identify affordable colleges and make sure deadlines are met.
Anon - there’s way more than 3! I just pulled up the list, there’s 4 in Alabama (listed by state). Didn’t count, but must be at least 100.