I posted this in a school thread in reply to another post and realized it probably was better suited for this forum.
Being the first time (and last) time going through this college app thing with my kid, I find the whole FAFSA thing crazy. I have doubts that my son will qualify for any type of aid, but we will submit the form anyways. However, I don’t need reminders from FAFSA once a week telling me that my son’s form is not completed yet. A) Taxes are not due until April 15th and B) I have not received all the forms yet (mainly 1099s) to complete my taxes. C) My son does not know what college he is going to yet as he’s still waiting for final replies from Wisconsin and Minnesota. (he’s been accepted at 3 other colleges) D) Could they make the deadlines any more confusing and hard to find?
When I go to the fafsa web site and click on the “deadlines” link it has a drop down box for the state. What does this mean, the state we are in or the state the school is in? Then it has a Federal deadline, a state deadline and a school deadline. Really? The school deadline can be different from the state deadline? What is the difference in all these deadlines??
I feel like we still have plenty of time to complete it, but also feel pressured with all these reminders to complete it. Also, after coming to this forum I see a thread where a person is concerned because of a February 1 Fafsa priority deadline. Huh? If they are asking for 2015 tax information in order to complete the fafsa form, how can they set a deadline of February 1st?!
Also, should my son list all 5 colleges that he is interested in on the FAFSA form including the 2 that have not given him a decision yet?
The sooner you get it in, the better. You are supposed to estimate the numbers if you send it in before your 2015 taxes are done. Then after your taxes are done, you file a correction if necessary.
Of course you list ALL the colleges he applied to! You do not wait until the student makes a decision. Indeed, most people want to compare financial aid packages from all their schools before making a decision! It will not be the same for every school.
Federal deadline: The last day the FAFSA for that academic year can be submitted.
School deadline: If you want to get a financial aid award letter before you have to make an admissions decision, you need to file in a timely manner to allow the school to process your awards. If you qualify for any institutional or campus-based federal (FWS, FSEOG) aid, it is first-come, first-served (filing by the deadline allows you to get the best awards possible FOR YOU … that may be 0, but you never know).
State deadline: Your state may have aid for its students - this refers to your state, not the state the school is in. Some states allow their awards to be used out-of-state, but others don’t. Missing this deadline means if you would have been eligible for state aid, you won’t get it.
Don’t worry about the emails. If you start a fafsa and then save it, you will receive emails to let you know it is not complete. Some people think it is completed so need the reminder that it didn’t go through. My daughter started her and then I had to complete it, and we did get the emails as a reminder. If you complete it now with estimates for 2015 taxes, the reminders will stop until you need to sync it with the filed taxes.
I suggest you file it even if you don’t think you’ll get any financial aid. My daughter got an grant from her college that she wouldn’t have received if she hadn’t filled out the fafsa. The awards are from alums and handed out at the discretion of the FA office, but the student has to have filled out the FAFSA to get it. Also need to file it for federal loans.
It may seem crazy, but in order for the schools to have a financial aid package ready for students when offering admission, they need the students to apply early for financial aid. Most school deadlines we encountered were Feb as early as Feb 1st (I think one was even Jan 15). They do not expect that you will have your taxes complete. If you look at FAFSA one of the selections for whether you have filed taxes is “will file”.
You enter the information as best you can using year end pay stubs and bank statements. The better job you do, the better results you will have to the actual offer. After you’ve done your taxes, you then go back and use the data retrieval tool to update and submit the correction. With any luck the numbers won’t vary by much.
As mentioned, the email reminders are just a “courtesy” to make sure you haven’t forgotten (or thought you had already). But this is not a time to delay. You should do it right away, and then once your taxes are done do it then (also not a year to delay doing taxes).
Thanks for the info everyone! Based on bad information we have received in the past we don’t exactly trust the counselor at my son’s school. I thought I saw somewhere that beginning next year they are going to allow data from the previous completed tax form (so, 2014 tax return if it were in effect this year). However, I may have read that incorrectly. I just hope it’s not a painful process to go back and make corrections after estimates are submitted.
The good news is that it is only this crazy the first year, because you only have to deal with the deadlines for one school
after that. But every school has their own deadlines for the FA forms (which may include more than FAFSA). We had to make a spreadsheet of all the dates and forms for each one to track them that first year. You can find the info on each school’s website. Also, parents of college students seeking FA do not have the luxury of waiting until April 15 to file – you have to get it done ASAP (the parents who really hate this are the ones who have historically filed extensions until Oct!). It is a hassle, but we all do it.
^^^^This is correct. So your fa will be based on your 2015 tax return two years in a row: for the 2016-17 academic year ( because the ask for the previous year’s info) and for the 2017-18 academic year because that’s when they are making the change to look at financial info from TWO years in the past.
If you want a financial aid award before your child needs to make a matriculation decision by May 1, you can’t complete your taxes OR the FAFSA on April 15. Too late.
If all you want for,your kid is a $5500 Direct Loan, you can complete the FAFSA whenever you please…as long as it is well before the end of your child’s academic year.
And if you don’t even want the Direct Loan…and you intend to be a full lay at any college…then you do not have to complete the FAFSA at all…ever, and you can ignore the emails you are getting.
There are plenty of folks on this forum who need reminders to get these things done. To be honest, deleting a reminder is a lot better and easier than missing a deadline.
