At this time of year, many parents of seniors may be sensing some relief. Your child has completed all of his or her admissions applications and is starting to see a few offers of admission. Additionally, you have completed the necessary financial aid applications, like the FAFSA and the CSS Profile (if required by the colleges on your list).
Once you submit the FAFSA, you can breathe a sigh of relief as you check this off the to-do list. Your FAFSA will be processed within three to five days. After that time, you will receive an email with a link to your Student Aid Report (SAR), which will include a summary of your application and let you know if there were any issues that still need to be resolved. If your application is complete, then the SAR will display your Expected Family Contribution (EFC), which is then used to calculate your financial aid eligibility at each institution
Now that we’ve covered the first steps to filing the FAFSA, you should have all your documentation handy and you are ready to tackle the FAFSA. The recommended method is to complete it online. You can also fill out a paper FAFSA, but online submission is easier and much faster for both you and colleges to process. The FAFSA consists of seven sections and about 100 questions total:
January 1st is right around the corner, which means it is almost time to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, more commonly referred to as the FAFSA. While the FAFSA can be intimidating, it does not have to be. If you are prepared with the appropriate documentation right in front of you, the process can be painless.
With all of the media attention recently about President Obama’s executive order requiring the use of prior-prior year income and the changes it will bring to the financial aid application timeline, we thought this would be a good time to step back and present what the college finance timeline should look like for this year’s seniors. It hasn’t changed!
College Coach experts, all former senior admissions and financial aid officers, are available to work privately with your student to achieve admissions success.
