<p>I am going to do that, but I still am confused if the deadlines include the will file status. If I do it Jan 1st and put the FASFA as “will file status” does that meet the deadlines? Or are the deadlines talking about after you have your taxes? A lot of the deadlines are Feb 1st. I’m assuming one cannot do their taxes until after Feb 1st. My father is self employed and he owns his own business, so right now he doesn’t seem to even have an estimate of what he’ll make.</p>
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<p>Your “will file” FAFSA and your estimated Profile will get you in the queue for financial aid consideration. BUT it is critical that you get your parents to complete their taxes as quickly as possible. Especially with self employed business owners, there can be plenty of “surprises” when it comes to need based aid. Very often the expenses that folks deduct as business expenses are NOT allowed in the financial aid calculation and are added back in as income. Until the school has a finalized FAFSA and an amended Profile, your financial aid awards will be ESTIMATES. Do you want to make your college marticulation choice based on an estimated financial aid award? I would think this is mighty risky to do. What would happen if your award was reduced to the point where your family could not pay their share?</p>
<p>Yes…do estimated with EXCELLENT estimates of 2011 taxes and earnings…then amend as SOON AS POSSIBLE.</p>
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<p>I have to say I was pretty worried about this having read the stories here, but as far as I can tell this did not happen in my husband’s case. But his expenses are pretty straight-forward costs of doing business, and relatively low compared to his income, so perhaps that is why.</p>
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<p>Also do not think that you’re going to get an updated finalized financial aid award package the day after you get them your finalized FAFSA, tax forms and Profile. There will be a delay, and the later in the season you send those things in, the longer the delay may be as FA offices get more and more bogged down. </p>
<p>I’m afraid I don’t remember actual timelines, but the sooner you can get your finalized forms in, the better!</p>
<p>Thanks so much! I feel like the whole financial aid process is so confusing. At least the college application process is much more straight forward. I’m just confused by the whole estimate and then updating it once you have your taxes. I know your trying your best at explaining the process, but it will take time to understand. I won’t get any package until they have my updated taxes. How long will that take once they have my finalized FASFA? Should I recieve most of them in March? If they don’t have my finalized one, will they send me just the estimate? Also, for the RD schools do they tend to give the financial aid package with the acceptance letter or later in April? If one of your parents is a homemaker does that affect it at all? My mother is a teacher, but has stayed at home since my sister was born two years ago. I wonder how it will affect our FA once she goes back to work.</p>
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It’s NOT as confusing as you are trying to make it. JUST go to EACH college website. Complete everything they tell you they want and get it done before the deadlines they publish if possible. The thing you seem most hung up on is that initial submission with estimates, and then finalizing the forms. It’s really not as hard as you are making it sound. JUST complete the FAFSA when it becomes available using your BEST estimates for 2011…ditto the Profile. THEN again you MUST get your parents to complete their taxes (and you need to do yours too if you need to file) AS SOON AS POSSIBLE after Feb 1. Just this year, it’s in YOUR interest college finance wise for them to get this done…and NOT in April…in FEBRUARY sometime. It takes time to process these applications and if you don’t send a finalized FAFSA/updated Profile info to the colleges sooner than later, you (as noted by another poster) might NOT get your REAL financial aid award in time to make your matriculation decision.</p>
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<p>See above. You need to complete the forms using estimates IF the deadlines are before your parents complete their taxes. There is no other way to do them if the deadlines are in January. Then when they complete them, you simply update with the info from the tax return, and resubmit.</p>
<p>I’m going to add here…if ALL of your schools have deadlines after Feb 1 (say Feb 15) maybe your parents can complete their taxes BEFORE your initial FAFSA/Profile filing. That way the numbers will be from your completed returns.</p>
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<p>I NEVER said that. I said that any financial aid award you get before your finalized and updated FAFSA/Profile will be an ESTIMATE…and subject to change when the real numbers are provided to the school.</p>
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My kids both did estimated FAFSA/Profile forms. We completed our taxes, updated and resubmitted in February. Both got their final accurate awards in either late March or in April, but in plenty of time to make a decision about matriculation before May 1.</p>
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Most schools will send your financial aid awards either with or shortly after your acceptances. HOWEVER if you haven’t finalized your FAFSA/Profile and completed your taxes…this will be an estimate.</p>
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<p>The only affect will be that your income will be less for this year. Once your mom goes back to work, her income will be added into the family income. Your need based aid will very likely be reduced when your mom goes back to work…another thing for you to consider. </p>
<p>One other thing to consider…unless your college meets full need for all accepted students, all bets are off. As an example, when my son was a senior, his sister was a freshman in college. His family contribution went down to 1/2 of what it had previously been. He got $250 more in grant aid…woohoo. The school did not meet full need and they didn’t give him much more.</p>
<p>EC, the finaid process <em>is</em> very confusing. </p>
<p>For RD, you will normally get your package about a week after your acceptance, in my experience. For the earlier acceptances, it can really vary. For the schools you are particularly interested in, you should check their financial aid website carefully or call their office – that should give you an idea of their timeline. </p>
<p>We did estimates in January and finalized early in February. I don’t think we got any estimated packages based on our January filings (but I could be misremembering) and unfortunately I don’t remember when my S’s EA packages were received, but I seem to recall that it wasn’t much earlier than the RD packages even though we did the forms as early as possible. </p>
<p>Any estimated package you might receive isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on since as others have said, the final package can be MUCH different. So I would suggest just ignoring any that you receive, getting your final numbers in ASAP and wait for your final packages before using them to make any decisions. There really is only so much folks here can tell you about the generic timeline. After that you have to research the details for each school individually, and this may involve a phone call.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone! Just one more thing. When you go in to fix any corrections once we have our taxes. Does it update it autmatically to the schools you applied for financial aid? We only have to call each school for the CSS Profile corrections, not FAFSA correct? What happens when we deleted the schools to add more since I had more then 10 schools. When I update the FASFA with my familes taxes will it send it to the deleted schools as well? I have a tendacy to overthink a lot, sorry! And BTW, I already know Clark U has a deadline of Feb 1st so were going to have to do estimates. And for example, if I send my FASFA into Clark with estimates and then tell them my families taxes after Feb 1st, is that okay since Feb 1st is their deadline. I see that the deadlines our only for estimates.</p>
<p>When you update the FAFSA, YOU will need to resubmit it to ALL the schools yourself. It doesn’t do it “automatically”…you do the same thing you did the first time. You submit to the schools on the FAFSA you are updating, then you go back in (after you receive the SAR…allow 3-5 days) and then delete schools and add the remaining schools.</p>
<p>Some people actually complete their taxes BEFORE the first deadline their student has so they do not have to use estimates. It doesn’t sound like that will be the case in your family. BUT some people can do this. We know families where the financial aid deadline was Feb 10 or Feb 15. They just made it their business to complete the taxes BEFORE those deadlines so they would not have to revisit these forms.</p>
<p>Okay, thank you. I wish the FA deadlines were later in Feb.</p>
<p>"why are people harping on e.c. for his test scores? It’s too late for him to sign up for another round of tests this college admissions season. So why beat a dead horse? "</p>
<p>Calmom, my kids ended up at their reaches. One was at a reach with regard to grades, one at a reach with regard to SATs. The grade reach is a freshman, the SAT reach is a senior. I think it’s important to know it doesn’t end with admission. I think I thought a LOT more about that the second time around, based on the first ones experience. As of two weeks ago, the senior was still not sure the blows to self esteem are worth it. That idea, is actually the topic of some capstone thingy she is working on. At least I THINK so. Of course our experience is just anecdotal, but there is real data in OP’s link.</p>
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Not quite true.</p>
<p>Some colleges will commit to meeting full need for some, but not all, of their admitted student. The college decides who gets the full need award – and may be very willing to commit to providing full need for 4 years for those students who get the preferential packaging. It depends on the school.</p>
<p>It’s rather simple, actually. You wait until awards are in, at least at the schools you would most like to attend. If there is a college that you want to attend and you are happy with the award, you arrange to confer with someone in the financial aid office to ask them what the policy will be for all 4 years. For a small college, try to make sure that “someone” is in a position of responsibility, like the director or assistant director – and be sure to get that someone’s name and try to get the answers in writing. (One easy way to do that is ask very specific questions by email). </p>
<p>Again, among other cc myths there is the myth of the 100% need college. I know from experience that schools that do NOT guarantee to meet full need of all students can be extremely generous to the students who have been designated by the admissions committee to receive preferential packaging. Obviously there is no way to know in advance if you will get that sort of treatment, and financial aid policies are considerably variable from one school to the next. But the schools that meet full need of some, but not all, of their students tend to have more flexibility over how they allocate their money, because they don’t have to worry about their financial aid budget being drained if the number of admitted students who need aid exceeds their projections.</p>
<p>It seems to me Calmom has nailed it.
“I know from experience that schools that do NOT guarantee to meet full need of all students can be extremely generous to the students who have been designated by the admissions committee to receive preferential packaging.”</p>
<p>And THAT’S why you want to maximize your SAT scores (and your gpa). Not because it’s such a fabulous predictor of anything, but because colleges put value on these things and that value translates into money.</p>
<p>I believe that whatever happens in this crazy admission process, it will happen for a reason :)</p>
<p>Yes, and the parents here have been trying to tell you what that reason is…you just aren’t listening.</p>
<p>Please read the whole thread before you make assumptions what others have said.</p>
<p>I’ve been reading your threads since Feb. 2009. That’s how I know you aren’t listening.</p>
<p>Oh dear, where is calmom when you need her :)</p>
<p>Perhaps she is better at prioritizing :)</p>
<p>Perhaps you guys should take her advice :)</p>
<p>As should you. You have important deadlines to deal with. Thumper cannot possibly make it any clearer for FA, and others loom for outside scholarships.</p>