<p>OK, I stayed up and filed out the FAFSA (year 3 of that being the New Year's Eve party event) -- and I will have to amend all the numbers once taxes are done -- is it worth it to do a "approximate" version and then do the final version in February -- or am I making myself nuts for no reason? (as long as I do get it correct by February)</p>
<p>I garnered number 5111 this year -- so I know there are at least 5110 other families who stayed up and posted estimated numbers. </p>
<p>Why are we doing this? I ended up amending one Fafsa EIGHT times last year as the correct numbers came in. I'm starting to wonder if I should just wait . . .</p>
<p>I think January FAFSA filing is important for first time filers, or if your school says to do it then. My D’s school has a May 6 renewal deadline, but did say that for the first year we should do it asap. We haven’t gotten renewal stuff for the coming year yet; it’s possible they will move the renewal deadline earlier for this year…</p>
<p>GC told us that colleges have a fixed amount of institutional aid they can grant and in the case of FAFSA/Profile, it really is important to file as early as possible so there will be more money in the pool when your application is reviewed. It made sense to me.</p>
<p>Schools, even those with a limited amount of funds, generally announce a priority filing date, after which funds might be limited. I have never heard of a school actually handing out money according to filing date to those who meet the deadline. I think all those who meet it are treated equally. (and probably at least partially because, why go through the headache of making early FA determinations only to have to redo them because of subsequent amendings?)</p>
<p>Every school school we discussed the Jan. 1st deadline with told us that they would prefer we wait until after we had our correct numbers (after the 31st of Jan.) and then filed immediately - most by Feb. 15th. None of them seemed interested in dealing with multiple changes. We are doing this for the first time and discussed this with 6 different finacial aid offices - both large and small schools.</p>