<p>I am sorry for asking, but I can't figure out the most basic aspect of the money situation. We have money saved for college. So does my D even need to apply for FAFSA?
At the same time, I think it would be beneficial if my D got that guaranteed loan of $5500, so that she has motivation to pay it back and feels invested in her education.
And while we don't need financial aid, I certainly want her to be considered for merit aid if she can get it, but will that not happen if we don't use FAFSA?
Three questions I guess, but it is all super confusing. I promise I have been researching. If anyone recommends a good guide to all this, please let me know.</p>
<p>You need to submit FAFSA if you want to consider the Fed Loan options. You can always decline the loan later if you don’t need it.</p>
<p>Thanks. I have heard that many colleges are need blind, but does she have a better chance of being accepted at a highly selective college if she doesn’t apply for FAFSA?</p>
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<p>Not if the school is need blind (most “highly selective colleges” are need blind). And you don’t “apply for FAFSA.” FAFSA is the application.</p>
<p>Most schools are need-blind. And if the school requires you to apply for FA for merit, then you have to do it.</p>
<p>BTW…your bigger concern is CSS Profile. The schools that are need-aware usually require THAT. If you look over their merit and they don’t require you to submit CSS, then don’t.</p>
<p>Most schools do NOT require you to apply for FA in order to get merit. But, again, most top schools don’t give merit, or only give it to a few selected students because those students help them in some way (ethnic diversity, regional diversity, etc). Top schools are full of top students, so they don’t need to give any merit to those with strong stats. </p>
<p>If you want merit, then have your child ALSO apply to a couple of schools that will give for her stats. </p>
<p>Do you have $200k saved and will happily pay it for undergrad? Or do you have a med school or law school bound child who could use that money for professional school? </p>
<p>If there is a need aware school you may not want to apply for aid if you are prepared to pay full fare. You can always request the student loan later after you are admitted and file a FAFSA for it at that time. Even if you file for aid and don’t get any you are still an eligible candidate for merit aid, if they give any, some highly selectives don’t.</p>
<p>If it looks like you qualify for some aid you might want to apply, especially at need blind schools. Run the Net price calculator and get some estimates. It will mostly be based on your income, but assets are part of the formula too.</p>
<p>And there is a good primer someone put together here. Start with that.</p>
<p><a href=“Financial aid FAQs - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>Financial aid FAQs - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums;
<p>Since we’re asking dumb questions, can I jump on the bandwagon? @Mom2collegekids you mentioned the CSS profile…now that part is still confusing me…is there a specific one for each college? (so we hand it in separately?) and if your kid is doing mostly EA, are those forms filled in now? Or after decisions are handed out?</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. This is super confusing, but you have all made it a little less so. And Southern Hope, last night I attended a financial aid presentation at our school, given by the chief financial officer of Sarah Lawrence. She said that at colleges that require a CSS, you submit it separately to each school. The first one costs $25, and subsequent forms are something like $16. Hope I didn’t get that wrong. I am not sure when they are handed in, but I think it is supplemental to the FAFSA, so maybe in January?</p>
<p>Southern Hope, </p>
<p>You need to look at the finaid web pages at each school and see for EA what they require in the way of finaid forms and what the deadlines are. It varies by school.</p>
<p>@SouthernHope the CSS Profile is just one form that several hundred schools use as an addition to FAFSA. Like FAFSA you fill it out once and send to each school that requires it. </p>
<p>Look at the timeline or financial aid pages for the colleges requirements, where your kid is applying. For EA it is very likely you need to give some forms now.</p>
<p>@SouthernHope Note that there are supplements in CSS profile just like in CommonApp. There may be school specific questions there. Also, many school would use their own forms instead of CSS profile.</p>
<p>It’s $9 to file the CSS Profile plus 16 for each school, so yes, I guess $25 for the first and $16 for each additional. </p>
<p>What school-specific supplements are there for the CSS Profile @billcsho ? I have never heard of that.</p>
<p>Many of the top schools are need-blind, but I would not say that most privates are need-blind.</p>
<p>@rhandco, when you finish the CSS and have listed the schools you’re sending it to, they will give you the supplemental Q’s for the different schools. This year for 10 colleges we had about 30 extra questions. They tell you which Q’s are going to which schools in a list, so you know exactly what info each college is getting. Some colleges wanted almost all the extra detailed Q’s. Some just got 2 or 3.</p>
<p>@Lindagaf, re: the CSS profile, when they say ‘send it’ to different colleges, it just means create a list at the end of the form before submitting and it gets sent electronically to the colleges. Once you’ve filled in the form it’s done and you can submit it to colleges as you apply. i.e., you can always go back and add colleges later. </p>
<p>@Lindagaf, D3’s roommate at Williams is the last of 5 kids in a family that is full pay for all kids. But the dad told me he always does the FAFSA and CSS at least the first year for each college for a few reasons (probably his kids applied to mostly need blind schools). Anyway, Williams offered them 2K in FA which he declined. He didn’t say why he declined but my guess is that 2K isn’t worth his having to fill out the CSS and FAFSA every year. Since it’s his last kid he knows the FA won’t likely increase in the future. And he says that way he knew what his options were and could make an informed choice. So that’s one strategy. </p>
<p>@honeybee63, Now you have me afraid of the CSS. The application so difficult that roommates dad would rather pay another $2000 x 4 years than fill it out? Maybe he has money to burn. We have a year but I’m trying to learn. Son is mostly focused on state schools but there are a couple of private safeties I think he might apply to. </p>
<p>@ospreyCV22, honestly I do dread it every year, but it’s worth it bc the FA packages at the schools that require it are so generous! This year it took me five hours but that was with chocolate and social media breaks 
and because I really didn’t have my paperwork in front of me when I sat down to do it and I had made early withdrawals from investments this year, etc. They say plan for max 2 hours. I imagine the family in question does have money to burn if they have had 5 kids full pay in private schools in 8 years - and probably their finances make the form even more ponderous and time consuming. Also he may have predicted that the 2K would disappear as soon as an older sibling graduated. If I had that kind of $ I might skip the CSS too!</p>
<p>@rhandco It is nothing new. All 3 schools we submitted CSS profile (for my D) last year have supplemental questions. See the complete list below:
<a href=“http://www.filecollegeinfo.com/docs/profilesectionqs.html”>http://www.filecollegeinfo.com/docs/profilesectionqs.html</a></p>
<p>I’m on my oldest, so I wouldn’t know whether it was new or not.</p>
<p>Nothing came up for the schools we sent the CSS Profile to when I filed.</p>
<p>Thank you for the list, I confirmed there as well, no supplemental questions. At the risk of being nosy, were any of the supplemental questions earth-shattering? I felt pretty well sliced and diced by the CSS Profile already.</p>
<p>We did fill in the info at the end, the Explanations and Special Circumstances, most of which will likely be ignored (family situation) but I did make a point about one of our salaries being much higher in 2014 as compared to what it will be in 2015 due to decreased work.</p>
<p>?? It makes NO SENSE to decline that first offer of $2k…the forms were ALREADY FILLED OUT! lol It only makes sense if he didn’t want to fill them out for the other three years.</p>