<p>On 4/13/2011 we received an e-mail from FAFSA notifying us that a change was made to my daughters FAFSA which caused our EFC to increase by $2880. When I called the Federal Student Aid Information Center that manages FAFSA, I was told that a financial aid officer at UVA had altered our income reflecting an additional $6,589 in untaxed income without any explanation and that UVA had locked our account so no other institution (including FSAIC) could make any changes to our account. They recommended that I call the UVA financial aid office concerning the change. I spent almost an entire day trying to speak with a Financial aid officer at UVA as they have someone who answers the phone who will take down your number so that a financial aid officer can call you back when they are available. I finally got an explanation of the change from the UVA financial aid office and it became evident that the change was incorrect and that UVA had actually reported income which was already reported on our FAFSA. I called up FSAIC and went through our tax returns and our FAFSA with a person on the FAFSA help line and verified that the additional income reported by UVA was an error and that my original FAFSA was correct. Now comes the most outrageous part even though our current FAFSA is now wrong, FAFSA staff cannot change it as UVA has put a professional lock on our FAFSA and are the only ones that can make a change to our FAFSA. We have already received notification from another college that our financial aid package has decreased as a result of the UVA changes, yet UVA has not corrected the error. I have called the UVA financial aid office daily since last Thursday to try and get the error corrected. I was promised the change would be made by Monday and yet it is now Tuesday afternoon, and no change has been made. UVA has however corrected and increased my daughter's UVA financial aid award based on correcting the EFC mistake they made, yet they seems unwilling to correct the problem to the FAFSA causing financial aid packages from other colleges to be impacted by their error. My daughter is now left trying to select a college by May 1st, yet erroneous corrections to her FAFSA are impacting her ability to make a sound decision based on accurate financial aid awards thanks to UVA. If financial aid is important to your childs college decision, I would not recommend applying to UVA as they are not very careful with changes they make to FAFSA forms and are NOT proactive when it comes to correcting their mistakes to a document shared with all other colleges you may be considering. My daughter certainly will NOT be accepting UVAs admission offer.</p>
<p>Use paragraphs. Call the Financial Aid Office. You only have 2 minutes left to edit your post into paragraphs.</p>
<p>Wow! What a nightmare. I am so sorry you have had to go through such an ordeal. Thank you for posting about your experience and good luck. Keep us posted on how it turns out. </p>
<p>My daughter has not chosen her school yet, either, and I get nervous with the clock ticking that something will change in her fin aid packages too or that after I send in the deposit there will be an “oops.” I’ve called and emailed one school several times just to keep confirming their long term aid policy.</p>
<p>I agree. Use paragraphs. One long diatribe is too much to read without breaking the story line into manageable bits. </p>
<p>Please keep a log of everyone you contact (who, when, email or phone, what was said, etc). I would email rather than call because then you have a record of each interaction. </p>
<p>I would also cc the President and Dean of Students at UVA. This sort of thing is a potential embarassment to UVA and getting the attention of administration might help. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>This is a new one on me. I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to “lock” the information on the FAFSA so that no other school can change it. Frankly, I have never heard of that, nor have I ever run into that. If I want to change something on a FAFSA, I can change it … as long as my school’s school code is on the transaction I am trying to change, I can do make any necessary updates & they will be sent to the processor. I can make the updates directly on the processing site, too, although we don’t use that method. I can reset to any transaction I want in our system, as well - so I can just go back to the transaction prior to another school’s changes . In addition, I can lock a certain set of information … but the lock is internal, just for my school.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice, I have started communicating with UVA via e-mail to have a paper trail, but I will try contacting the admissions office, maybe they can light a fire.</p>
<p>Kelsmom, yes according to FSAIC it is not a normal update that was done to our FAFSA by UVA, they put a professional lock on the account which only gives UVA the ability to change the information. Our nephew who also applied to UVA this year is also having some issues with their administration (another whole story) but it makes me really question their competency.</p>
<p>I spoke with a coworker who has spent years in financial aid. She agrees that a school cannot lock a FAFSA. What can happen is that the school removes all of the other school codes when they make their change. This keeps the change from being submitted to any other schools. There would be a note in the federal processing system that says “DRN required.” I can’t see any FAFSA transactions with DRN required. The most current FAFSA you see when you go to fafsa.gov may very well be the one UVA changed. However, the other schools will all still have access to the FAFSA transaction that was on file before the change. What this means for you is that if UVA removed all other schools from the FAFSA on which they made changes, no other school has received the changes UVA made. So your eligibility at other schools would not be dependent on UVA’s mistake at all.</p>
<p>Assuming you only did an initial FAFSA, and assuming neither you nor any school other than UVA has updated your FAFSA, you will have two FAFSA’s on file … transaction #1 and transaction #2. When you sign in & say you want to make corrections, you will be asked if your aid administrator has given you a transaction number. If you don’t enter a number, you get the most recent transaction. However, if you put in #1, you will see your initial FAFSA … and you can see the schools that are listed. If you put in #2, you will see the changes UVA made … and you will probably see that the only school listed is UVA. If this is the case, you can rest assured the changes UVA made were only seen by UVA. The initial FAFSA info is what the other schools are seeing. (That is, if my assumption that “locking” the changes means what I think it does)</p>
<p>as much as I really like UVa, this is one reason why I’m not a big proponent of paying OOS fees to attend a public: state bureaucracy!</p>
<p>Yes, the good thing is that UVa is one of the few publics that meets full need but finding a real live person to talk to…Ugh.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Not sure where to post my recent experience with UVA:</p>
<p>My S was accepted and 3 days ago he received an email that said:</p>
<p>Dear S name,</p>
<p>It is my pleasure to inform you that you have been awarded scholarship assistance from the Paul Mellon Scholarship Fund for the 2011-12 academic year at the University of Virginia. Your selection for this University scholarship is based upon your academic achievement as well as your financial need.</p>
<p>The scholarship award of $17,237 is reflected on the Student Information System (SIS). This award will be disbursed to your student account in two equal payments. The fall portion will be disbursed in mid August, and the spring portion in January. Both disbursements will be applied prior to the term billing due date for each term. The funds from this scholarship are generated from an endowment, so each years award amount will vary by the number of eligible recipients and the yearly performance of the endowment. </p>
<p>I congratulate you on this high honor and extend my best wishes for continued academic success. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Scholarship group at <a href=“mailto:scholarships@virginia.edu”>scholarships@virginia.edu</a> or by phone at 434 982-6000.</p>
<p>Later that day he received a second email saying:</p>
<p>Dear S name,</p>
<p>We are writing to express our sincere apology for a recent mailing error that has occurred. Due to a mail merge error, you were inadvertently sent an email, dated 4-18-11, congratulating you on receiving a Paul Mellon Scholarship. This is an unfortunate mistake and we ask that you disregard that message. Should you be offered a scholarship from the University of Virginia, we will send the announcement to you in letter form. Please do not hesitate to contact the scholarship group, should you have any questions. Again, please disregard our previous email, as it was forwarded to you in error.</p>
<p>Kind regards,</p>
<p>Student Financial Services </p>
<p>Unbelievable, right? What a slap in the face and careless communication. Just needed to vent. Did anyone else get this offer and withdrawal notice?</p>
<p>That’s terrible. I have a friend who received a similar mistaken email a couple of years ago from an engineering school, RPI I think, and they honored the mistaken scholarship offer. It was a lot of money too!</p>
<p>As the mom of a UVA first year, I just want to say that the UVA financial aid office has been great to work with (and most of my daughter’s tuition is coming from financial aid of some sort). Yes, I have to wait on the phone to speak with a human, but there are so many other students and parents who have questions too and want to make sure they’re doing the right thing.</p>
<p>You need to remember… 1. people are human and do make mistakes and 2. you get more results being nice than being nasty.</p>
<p>There are plenty of email addresses listed on the UVA financial aid website. You should be able to take care of this quickly.</p>
<p>Have other people had experiences like this at other schools? Is FAFSA changeable?</p>
<p>Please use old threads for information only, when posted on an revived, other members often do not notice the date and reply to the OP.</p>
<p>Please use the New Thread button to ask your question.</p>