Our school uploads the kids transcript to the California Colleges website. I’ve only seen the screenshot from my son but it looks like in the senior year, our counselor uploads in the fall, the recent Midyear, and likely on the end. The UCs and CSUs have access to it. She said UCs don’t care for the final transcript til end of Senior Year.
Your school may be uploading the grades but the UCs and CSUs are not accessing them at this time. They do not consider any information for admission decisions beyond what is on your original application unless they specifically ask you for it.
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UCSB keeps asking us, repeatedly, to send in FAFSA, but I already know we know qualify for any financial aid (as confirmed with early safety school admits). Is there any reason I’m missing to send it on?
Did you mean to say “we know we don’t qualify for any financial aid”? If that was what you meant, we were in the same boat. However, we were told that even some merit-based scholarships require the FAFSA information to be filed. So we did.
Yes… “don’t qualify”. Haven’t had coffee yet 
Thanks! That was the answer I was looking for. If it is needed for merit awards from UCSB, then we will send it in.
Just to clarify–I am not sure that UCSB specifically has that requirement–we just did the FAFSA, and then had it sent to all the schools to which she applied.
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We are in the same situation, and I was just thinking of asking about this too. I’d like to hear from others. I’ll have two in college this coming year, but they’ll both be at California in-state schools, and I don’t expect any need based aid.
Does anyone else know about this issue? Is there a reason to file the FAFSA even if there’s no expectation of need-based aid?
We didn’t file a FAFSA, when my D18 applied 3 years ago and D18 received the Chancellors scholarship invite and acceptance. And we didn’t submit one for D21 this year either. So, unless rules or procedures changed, it’s not required.
@Gumbymom Any thoughts?
A very few of the private schools D21 applied to required FAFSA (and CSS profile) for merit, which she received even though we don’t qualify for need-based aid. But my understanding is that is the exception. I would think all UCs would be aligned on this issue and that any of the financial aid offices could clarify.
I could be wrong, but on the UCI portal where you can apply for scholarships, it said to remember to file fafsa to qualify for aid. My friend is an intl student and she doesnt qualify for FAFSA so she isnt submitting scholarhsip apps. If all UCs have the same policy, maybe FAFSA is required? Or might be for scholarships that aren’t invite based. I could be wrong but I do believe I saw something like this on the UCI portal.
I suggest you contact each UC about the FASFA question. For many schools, if the scholarship also has a need-based aid component, the schools usually want the FASFA filed. I only filed the FASFA for my sons’s Freshman year but since they were not in-line for any merit scholarships at the CSU’s and UC’s and we did not qualify for any need-based aid, I never filed again.
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So UCSB has been emailing my daughter reminding her to submit her FAFSA. She submitted it months ago and figured that the email was just a blanket reminder to everyone but now we’re nervous that they didn’t get it. Is there somewhere on the portal that we can see if they’ve received it?
We (twins) are getting the same thing from UCSB and other UCs and we already submitted also.
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Hey gauchos! I thought I’d let you all know that people are starting to hear back from UC Santa Cruz. It seems that they are all very high stat kids and they didn’t send out emails so check your portals if you applied to UCSC!
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Several kids got admitted into UCSB today.No emails. Just in the portal.
Where did you see that info?
In state friends checked their portal.
Do you mean UCSC?
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Can confirm. My robotics kiddo that I’m helping got in. He checked his portal and saw the info. No email update. No financial aid info, either. He would’ve qualified for aid since he did with his Berkeley MET acceptance.
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Wow, that is really early and unusual for UCSB. Did he by any chance qualify for honors or Regents? Maybe this is instead of the Chancellor’s Reception invite.