Why Is Financial Aid So Confusing????

<p>If a school is participating in college board's IDOC, then do I still need to send W-2 forms to that school?</p>

<p>Also, when I send W-2 forms, do I just send them in an envelope and the finaid offices look up the name and say "we have a John Doe with SSN 123456789 in our system" and automatically add that to my file, or are there any special forms I need to fill out and send along with W-2s?</p>

<p>come on!!! bump!!!</p>

<p>Your colleges all have a procedure for getting the documentation they want. I would suggest that you look on the college websites to see what each college wants you to do. It varies by school. If you are not sure, call them. There will be a specific address to mail this information to...When we sent tax information, we also included a cover letter with the student's name and SS # (or college ID number...some schools give those to applicants), and address and birthdate, so the college would know which student the documents were for.</p>

<p>I agree that you need to check the individual college's financial aid website. It's all spelled out. We made sure we put D's name and ss# on the top of all documents, just to be sure they were filed properly. I used to work in a financial aid office, and I can assure you it is a good idea to do this ... it will reduce the chance of the piece of paper being improperly filed.</p>