<p>Only one out of 12 schools my D applied to is requesting IDOC. And it's a reach. So, I have to do all that work for a college she probably won't get into?</p>
<p>1) The financial aid office works independently from admissions, especially at a need-blind school. They need to work on making sure that every financial aid application from every student is complete, so that it's ready to go as soon as the student has been admitted. If they don't do that, there is a lag time between getting admitted and receiving the financial aid award - not good if it is the end of April and you are still trying to figure out the financial aid part.
2) I spent all last year stressing and feeling resentful because my daughter's super-reach college that she probably would never get into kept asking for so much more info & documentation. It seemed like they always wanted something more, and there was no end to the demands.</p>
<p>Guess what? My kid was accepted and there financial aid offer included a grant that was $9000 more than any other college offered -- and when I called them up to discuss one piece of info they were still asking for, they told me that once they got that the grant would be increased even more. </p>
<p>Moral: just do it. Give them what they need and don't try to read anything into it.</p>
<p>Wow. That was really helpful.
Did the financial aid offer come with the letter of acceptance?</p>
<p>In the case of the school I mentioned,no -- but it came separately within a week thereafter -- and the acceptance arrived unexpectedly early, by overnight mail about a week before the April 1 deadline -- so we had that info in hand very quickly.</p>
<p>Some other schools took longer -- one was pretty late in April and a couple never did send us award letters, but I didn't follow up with those because it wouldn't have made a difference in the decision. </p>
<p>My experience is that it is best to be proactive and give colleges everything they need as soon as possible. If you have any unusual expenses or concerns (high medical bills, etc.), its also a good idea to send a letter to the financial aid office early on explaining those -- its worth reviewing the types of expenses financial aid offices might consider here: <a href="http://www.finaid.org/educators/pj/%5B/url%5D">http://www.finaid.org/educators/pj/</a></p>