<p>Hey,
I filed my FAFSA in January and corrected/sent it January 21. I received a Student Aid Report in my e-mail, and was told by most of the colleges I applied to that it takes 2-3 weeks to process the FAFSA. (I submitted a CSS back in November, too). None of the colleges have notified me that they have received my FAFSA; will they do so or will I just receive a financial aid offer later in the mail? When can I expect this letter?</p>
<p>Also, a couple of colleges (Fordham University and Ithaca College) have sent my financial aid offers already, but didn't clarify whether they were early estimates or not. I received these letters about a week or so ago, right around the time the FAFSA would be processed. Do you think these offers are based on my CSS only, or both forms?</p>
<p>It's been a little over 3 weeks now since I've filed my FAFSA, and I don't know whether I should be calling up all the admissions offices and bothering them again.</p>
<p>Sorry for all the questions, I'm the first kid in my family going to college and I'm just very confused! Thanks for taking the time to answer.</p>
<p>None of the colleges will let you know they received your FAFSA or Profile. Some schools where you already have been accepted MIGHT let you know if they didn’t receive it. That happened to one of my kids at one school only. We got a friendly reminder to do the financial aid application forms. In most cases, you will receive your financial aid offer either with or shortly after your acceptance.</p>
<p>If you are REALLY concerned that a school didn’t receive your forms, call or email them. But wait a bit…some schools take their time uploading this information.</p>
<p>Okay thank you! Most of the schools I applied to were EA though…I received a lot of my decision letters in November and December, before I could file my FAFSA, so I guess I have to wait until April for my aid letters?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If the college has a “track your financial aid” website and you have a login ID assigned to you, check it. A few of my schools have that and they let you know if your CSS and FAFSA, as well as other required docs, were received.</p></li>
<li><p>Call them! They won’t bite! :)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Actually a few colleges sent an email to my son to let him know that they have his fafsa. </p>
<p>My son does have 2 financial aid packages in hand. One of these schools does an “early read”, so we had that one for a few weeks. We received a FA package from a second school a couple of days ago.</p>
<p>So, just to clarify…some schools send aid packages and acceptances earlier than April 1st? I ask because all of my schools notify students of admittance and aid around April 1st. I assume that schools with those deadlines won’t be sending things out before then, correct?</p>
<p>That is correct. If you are admitted, you may receive the aid package at the same time. All my D’s April 1 reply date schools did that.</p>
<p>As for when to expect packages from other schools, that varies by school. I work at a school with a mid February financial aid priority date. However, we won’t be sending our admitted freshmen their packages until sometime in March. Our computer system is not ready to do that yet, and we have other internal issues to sort out (such as how we will be awarding institutional aid). Also, do remember that if the school is verifying your information, you may first receive an estimate … which then may (or may not) change based on information updates made during verification.</p>
<p>miss__murd3r, I don’t know if you might get an acceptance a few weeks earlier than the 4/1 notification date. I can only tell you that my son heard from some EA, rolling, and RD schools (not tier 1) and 2 FA packages were sent (both of these schools have copies of our W-2s but we have not filed taxes yet, so they are estimates). We have not heard from any of the schools yet.</p>
<p>Thanks kelsmom and northeastmom! That makes sense. I was just wondering why some people got acceptances so early. One of my friends already heard back from 8 schools! I assumed they had rolling admissions, but he had no clue himself.</p>
<p>They were either rolling admissions or Early Assurance/Early Response schools. Even some schools with set admissions response dates have earlier response dates than others.</p>
<p>miss__murd3r, your welcome and good luck!! </p>
<p>Oh, in my last sentence in post #8, I meant to say that we had not heard from any other schools that our son was accepted to with respect to a FA package (other than those 2 estimates that I mentioned to you).</p>