<p>Do I have to update the FAFSA and CSS PROFILE for EVERY school I apply to, or only the one that I get accepted to?</p>
<p>Thanks :)</p>
<p>If you want your REAL finalized financial aid award before you make your decision about which college, then you MUST update all of the FAFSA and Profiles to reflect what is actually ON your 2013 taxes.</p>
<p>The FAFSA can be update easily online. For the a profile, you will need to contact each Profile school to find out what they want you to do to update your information. That cannot be done online.</p>
<p>Some schools do not accept CSS profile update from student, but they may update the info from your FAFSA.</p>
<p>Well then I don’t understand the Profile. We had three schools with 1/15 due dates for Profile. Obviously had to file with estimates. I thought I could just go back in like the FAFSA and change info/change to ‘filed’. </p>
<p>You will need to update the Profile information. Contact the colleges to find out how each wants you to do so. Some will ask you to print out a copy and write in the changes. Some will update using the tax info from the FAFSA when they receive that. Some participate with IDOC and will want all documentation sent there. Some will require signed copied of your completed tax return, or will use the IRS retrieval tool to access your tax return and will make corrections.</p>
<p>YMMV.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what you don’t understand. The colleges have these early deadlines so they can begin work on financial aid awards. If they don’t get a head start, they would have difficulty completing the task by matriculation decision day. You should have had pretty accurate 2013 numbers from your end of year pay stubs. Hopefully you used those numbers. </p>
<p>It is NOT a huge deal to update…we did it for our kids. Just get your taxes done ASAP!</p>
<p>Thanks guys! :)</p>
<p>@Thumper1 – unfortunately, not everyone gets end of year paystubs. My husband is a singer, and works exclusively as an independent contractor and his income is only reported via 1099, from numerous souces. As of today, we still haven’t received all of the 1099’s , and I had to file our taxes without them in order to meet the IDOC deadline for some of the schools. Fortunately, the missing ones are from people for whom only a few performances were booked, and we know the amounts he was paid during the year. But families in similar situations have a lot more difficulty meeting these FA deadlines with accurate info. Obviously, we do the best we can, but it still often involves a lot of estimating.</p>
<p>I have a related question. We first completed the FAFSA on January 31 to meet the first batch of February 1 deadlines. We went and checked all our current checking, savings, investment balances as of that date. Now we have additional schools to submit with February 15 and March 1 deadlines. Do we have to go back and re-do all of the balances in these accounts each and every time? There hasn’t been any material changes in the last month.</p>
<p>Petra, my son is a musician also who gets paid as a contractor. He doesn’t even get 1099 forms from some folks because the amount is less than required for them to send him one.</p>
<p>BUT…he keeps meticulous records, and as of December 31, he was very able to tell you every nickel he earned. If he needed to, he could file his taxes January 1.</p>
<p>ETA…yoamogatos…you do NOT change the asset information on the FAFSA when you update. Theses are left as of the date of your initial filing of the FAFSA. The only fields you change are ones that deal with the numbers on your 2013 tax return. </p>
<p>The ONLY time you can change asset amounts is if you incorrectly reported them on your initial filing date. But the corrected amount should still be what the assets were on the date of your initial filing.</p>
<p>Thumper1 --Since you are here on a college forum, I’m assuming your son is probably too young to have any kids to drive to various schools that are not exactly close by (we spend between 2 to 3 hours each school day on driving between all our kids depending on that days school schedule, in addition to any EC trips that need to be made). Your son may or may not be an active member of 3 different bands, which are often paid based on door rather than a set amount, with his own subcontracted players for a band he headlines and the material for three different bands to keep on top of. Maybe he does, I don’t know. My point was that we really can’t make blanket assumptions for people we don’t even know, about how easy or difficult it is to give accurate estimates so early in the tax season. We each have different demands on our time and attention, and different skill sets when it comes to record keeping. In an ideal world, we would all be perfect at record keeping like your son, but alas, not all of us are.</p>
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<p>Are you sure that the schools have IDOC deadlines? They have CSS deadlines so that they can start working on the financial aid process, but the IDOC is not necessary to that process as it just confirms the numbers on the return. We won’t get a mutual fund 1099 until Feb 18, and I am sure that others are in the same boat, so I am doubtful if schools have an IDOC deadline before then.</p>
<p>There is a deadline on the IDOC instruction which is later than the CSS profile deadline. They will still accept it if sent after the deadline as the instruction said. But you don’t want to delay or impact your financial aid package. For our mutual funds, we can download the 1099 PDF from our broker before they mail to us.</p>
<p>@SoCalDad2 – yep, both schools my DD applied to that use IDOC have deadlines – one on Feb 15, and the other March 1, although the deadline on the IDOC email says March 2, I believe. It further states that you need to check with all your schools to make sure if they have different deadlines than the CollegeBoard. The CSS deadline for both schools was Feb 1.</p>
<p>Oh, and the Feb 15 deadline was that it had to be received by the 15th, not postmarked. </p>
<p>They recommend Priority mail, so it would take 2-3 business days for delivery usually.</p>
<p>Petraelise, if you end up filing an amended tax return, you are supposed to provide that to the school and they may adjust need based aid because of the amendment (just had this unhappy experience myself…). So you can rush it… but you may end up with a change in your aid later. And it is taking the IRS a very long time to process amended returns right now (I am in the 5th month of waiting for my additional refund after filing my 2012 amendment in Sept of last year). So it is really better to wait if possible. You can call the schools and ask about the deadlines, and whether you can get an extension and what impact it will have.</p>
<p>@intparent – I’m not worried about filing an amended return – the missing 1099s are fully accounted for in terms of income earned since we claimed it, and we know the exact amount. We deal with it every year, believe me. The amount is only just over the $600 threshold, so I don’t expect it to impact our aid offers. And, I already filed, so it’s done now. Thank you for your helpful comments, much appreciated!</p>