<p>I'm currently a junior in high school and I thought I would try to start the scholarship hunt now. However, when I started the FAFSA application I realized that the only two options that they had were starting college between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2012 and between July 1, 2012 and June 30,2013. I don't fall into either of those. I would be between July 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014. Since I don't fall into the two available categories when should I return to apply for fafsa? Is it only for current high school seniors?</p>
<p>The earliest YOU can file the FAFSA for your freshman year of college (2013-2014 school year) is January 1, 2013. You cannot do it sooner.</p>
<p>Also you “submit” a FAFSA…you don’t “apply to” FAFSA. The FAFSA is a financial aid application form used by all but a couple of colleges to help determine your eligibility for need based aid. The FAFSA itself really gives you nothing. Either you will qualify for federally funded aid, or for aid from the college itself…using figures that come from the FAFSA.</p>
<p>FAFSA is used for distribution of federal grant and loan money…doesn’t really have much to do with the type of scholarships you are talking about. Your guidance office should have information on local scholarships although most of those you will apply for during your senior year. It never hurts however, to mentally start thinking about deadlines. There are also national scholarships like Elks, Coke, etc. Fastweb.com has scholarship information and finally individual colleges often have scholarships that you will be considered when you apply and some will have a separate application. If one of your parents works for a large company, that business may also have scholarships for employees and employee’s kids. All you can do right now as a junior is start looking and gathering information.</p>
<p>Where we live, actually several of the local scholarships my kids applied for requested the FAFSA SAR.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the advice and clarification!</p>
<p>Deleted, my mistake!</p>