will colleges complete verification for fafsa / financial aid before May 1?

Paying for College
1

My older is heading to college in a few weeks and my younger will be starting in a year and I am still not too sure how the financial aid package work

Last year, I filled out fafsa quite late (February/March of this year). Therefore even DD received the financial aid package, I did not know whether the package was final as we would be audited. I have no problem of producing the paper work but I really need to know there would be no surprises…as I have read people’s aid got reduced after they were committed. Therefore in March/April, I began contacting colleges to ask what they needed, only one college worked with me and asked me for the documents, I provided them and answered all their questions… …However, there was one college honestly told me they would not look into verification until the student committed, seems to be that they didn’t want to waste their time ( I suspected a few of the other colleges were the same, even they didn’t answer me much)…If was after I kept on asking that they looked into fafsa and began changing my fafsa without checking with me…I would assume if they had question, they would ask me, but they didn’t, they just change fafsa…

Anyway, I knew it was my fault and I learned my lesson, I will submit fafsa early this year… My question is if I were to apply fafsa early, say in November/December, do the colleges normally do the verification before May 1? Or is my suspicious right that they don’t do the verification until after a student commit? I am concerned as next year, I will be applying a few profiles school….and I understand their calculation may be unpredictable (net price calculator won’t for us)

2

So…do the financial aid forms when they become available at the beginning of OCTOBER. Don’t wait until November or December. Get them done ASAP. They will use 2016 tax info…which should be completed. Even if younare self employed…they will,be done by October.

Some colleges don’t do verification until later than others.

What makes you think you will be chosen for verification?

3

Thanks. I certainly will as I think some of younger DD’s colleges require fafsa completed before year end.

but will most of the colleges complete (or begin) the verification before May 1?

4

Most do the verifications, if any, as soon as they can. If you are putting in the correct information, there shouldn’t be that many changes. Most schools will award the FA and assume the information on the FAFSA is correct, so only make changes if the information isn’t correct or can’t be verified.

if you had big changes this year, you will know how to correctly enter the information for next year.

5

It all depends on the college. The smaller the financial aid staff, the more likely it is that verification will be done later rather than sooner. All colleges work hard to get it done as early as possible.