<p>You do not resubmit the Profile. BUT you do need to contact each college to find out how THEY want the information updated after you complete your taxes. In our experience, we were told three things…1. Update by printing out the Profile, writing in the corrections and mailing to the school (and they gave us exactly the address to mail it to), 2. No update needed, school uses IDOC (that’s sort of a clearling house whereby you send all of your tax info to IDOC and it is sent to the colleges you select), 3. Don’t do anything…the college uses tax returns to check the numbers.</p>
<p>And Calmom, we were told specifically by three Profile schools that we were required to update our Profile info…they did NOT rely on the FAFSA.</p>
<p>YMMV as they say.</p>
<p>So…just do what each college tells you to do…and you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>Thanks for the financial advice thumper/calmom. BTW, is it common for people to do estimates with their 2010 (or year before) taxes? Or would I be the few that does it? Hopefully my father just has his estimates for 2011 when I do it.</p>
<p>Calling me needy and immature is very rude when I’ve been going through this whole process by myself. I’m very mature for my age. Have you met the typical 17 year old? When you apply to 17 colleges, please get back to me.</p>
<p>ec,
As you head to college, learning to hear feedback or others’ opinions without getting defensive or sarcastic might be a helpful skill to develop. Just sayin’ (and please don’t respond with a sarcastic barb or ad hominem. This was meant as a helpful suggestion. Please take it as such).</p>
<p>I think thumper has answered your questions multiple times, and may be getting frustrated when answering one question leads to 10 more questions. If you have to do a FAFSA estimate, then YES you have to use a previous years estimate if you don’t have current numbers to work with and you are told that the previous years numbers are close. What she has told you repeatedly is to get something in by the deadline. You can change it later. She has been PAINFULLY clear. </p>
<p>I hope she doesnt kill me for bringing her to this thread. Apologies, thumper.</p>
<p>I consider it a personal attack when someone is like that. Of course I am going to defend myself. </p>
<p>Actually, as she said, it is better for me to be asking these questions now then later. And I appreciate all her help. Getting things in before the deadlines have never been a problem, I understand that. I have never missed a deadline.</p>
<p>It is very common for students to file the FAFSA/Profile using estimates for their 2011 income/taxes. EVERY student who needs to meet a fall priority deadline for the Profile does this (most ED schools and many EA schools have a early priority filing date for EA/ED applicants). No…you will not be one of a few…you will be one of many.</p>
<p>In fact, many of us have often asked WHY schools even have a deadline in January since taxes are unlikely to be completed by then. But they do…so that is that.</p>
<p>I was talking about if it was common to use FAFSA the numbers from my families 2010 return. I was asking if that was uncommon? So, not the previous year but two years ago in this instance. That’s what calmom suggested I did. </p>
<p>EC, do all of your schools require the profile? We were lucky in that all of my DS’s profile schools had profile deadlines of Feb 15 or later, so we were able to do the profile only once, with the real numbers. We did the FAFSA earlier (first week of January) using estimates, and had to revise it when we finished our taxes. If you can wait until you can put final or near-final numbers on the Profile, that will cause you less hassles going forward.</p>
<p>The best thing you can do right now is make a spreadsheet with columns like FAFSA deadline, Profile Deadline, tax forms deadline and address, IDOC deadline (the way some schools require you to submit tax forms that goes through college board – there is probably another fee for this but I don’t recall the details). You may have already done this, but I suggest that after making your list you “check it twice” as the song goes, because some of my S’s schools CHANGED their requirements between the first time we did this and the final deadlines! Many schools will also state on their page when you should expect estimated and/or final finaid offers, and you can add that info to your spreadsheet too. </p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I don’t consider applying to 17 colleges to be a sign of maturity. To me it seems like a waste of time and money, but I hope it all works out for you. The fact that you are leading the way on this, though, is a sign of maturity in my book. Again, best of luck to you!</p>
<p>EC…didn’t you say that your parents had completed the FAFSA for 2010 for a sibling? </p>
<p>It is not uncommon for folks to use their 2010 data IF they have nothing more accurate. You (and anyone else who uses 2010 data) will want to make adjustments to the amounts IF there notable change in your financial status (e.g. income increases significantly or reduces significantly). Remember, you want these estimates to be as accurate as possible.</p>
<p>Usually people who don’t have full 2011 data will use a combination of 2010 data and what they know to be the same/different in 2011. If your dad truly has no clue whether his numbers will go up or down this year, then just use the 2010 numbers and don’t worry about it, but know that your estimates will be even more useless than usual, since they will be based on irrelevant numbers (unless the 2011 number turn out to be fortuitously almost identical to the 2010 numbers you used).</p>
<p>The following schools I applied to require the CSS profile: The College of Wooster, College of Holy Cross, Clark University, Hobart, Lenoir-Rhyne, Lawrence, Ursinus, Ohio Wesleyan (wait-listed though, so may not even accept it now), and Wheaton require it. That’s $128 not including OWU. However, for Wooster I can use another form instead of the CSS Profile.</p>
<p>Is the IDOC part of the CSS Profile? I haven’t seen anything about it on the school websites I looked at thus far. My parents have completed FAFSA for 2010 for my older brother this past summer. Thanks again for the help everyone!</p>
<p>Early_college- a few concerns I have after reading your entire thread. Part of your packages will probably come in the form of a parent loan and work study and student contribution through summer earnings. You have stated that you can not work now with school. Will you be able to work during college. Will you be able to come up with the student contribution. Your Mother has told you that she will not take out a loan. I don’t think your Dad can take out any loans without your Moms permission. Also you state your Dad wants you to work for him to earn the parent contribution. You have stated that is not likely to happen.
Also if your Mom goes back to work your parent contribution will go up. Will your parents be willing to pay more down the line. Also while your older brother is in school you will get more aid. If your brother drops out or completes his program your family contribution will go up.
You need to think down the line as well as just for next year. Sit down with your both your parents together with some of the online estimations. Have them both be clear what they are able and willing to pay.
The fafsa should not be so difficult since your parents should already have a PIN and if you need to use 2010 numbers it will already be done. I have not done the profile in quite a number of years but I remember it asking for more detailed things if I recall even the value of your family vehicles. Look at the profile and gather what materials you can as soon as possible. I would do this earlier since you say your father can be tardy in getting things together.</p>
<p>I plan on doing work study in college. My father would cosign, but my mother wouldn’t. Based on some early estimators, some colleges do not give parent loans. For example, Clark and Holy Cross didn’t and Earlham did. I know these are just estimates, but not every school will give a parent loan. If I worked for my father, I wouldn’t make any money. My brother is at a local technical school, so it doesn’t cost much. When I’m a senior in college, my younger brother will be a freshman. Thanks for the advice!</p>
<p>None of our packages included parent plus loans. Information stating that one could take out a Plus Loan for xyz amount if one were qualified was included as part of some packages. That did not mean that we were not gapped, and a few schools did load up the loans as part of their package (ie: small institution loan, Perkins loan, in addition to the Stafford). There was quite a spread (thousands of dollars) between the worst and best packages.</p>
<p>IDOC is separate from the CSS Profile. IDOC charges fees to the institution rather than to the student, so that’s good news. IDOC is a way to send a college your completed tax forms. Some colleges will require that you send the forms directly to them; others will require that you send them via IDOC. IDOC is kind of a pain, but also saves you from making tons of copies. You send one copy to IDOC and they send it out to all the schools that participate. </p>
<p>As always you need to check each school you are applying to and see if they expect you to send tax forms (a) soon by mail, (b) soon via IDOC, (c) in May, only if you accept an offer of admission or (d) not at all unless they explicitly request them to validate your other forms. (I think those are the only 4 choices, but I may have missed some). </p>
<p>Some schools will allow you to submit their own supplement for free in place of the CSS Profile. (Wooster seems to offer that option.) You and your parents have to decide whether it’s worth $16 not to have to fill all that information into one more form.</p>
<p>I just got an email from Allegheny stating that they have a special holiday visit program on MLK day and Presidents Day. They will pay for me to go, but it’s less then Hiram and won’t cover round-trip airfare.</p>
<p>It may be worth it, EC, depending on how much it will cover. If they’re doing a special visit day like that they may be arranging rides to and from the airport, overnight accommodations with older students, etc. Is there a bus or train you could take that would cost less?</p>
<p>Amtrack costed a lot more money when I just looked it up and isn’t exactly close and it takes a lot longer. Allegheny will give $100 for reimbursements, Hiram gave up to $350 if I remember correctly. But it may not be worth it because I will probably visit during spring break. If this was Lawrence or Knox, maybe it would since there not close to the other schools.</p>