<p>My D will be a freshman in Fall 2012 and colleges are suggesting we complete FAFSA early with estimations of 2011 taxes. We have 13 schools to send FAFSA to and only 10 can be sent at a time. Question 1 is: if I do it this weekend with estimated numbers, select 10 schools, wait 3-4 days until they have received it, then send to the other 3 schools, will I then have to do the same thing when I update it later with the actuals? Question 2 is: my college-junior S is enrolled, though on leave, from a very expensive private college, and applying for Fall 2012 transfer to a school that is more affordable; how do I handle that on FAFSA if he hasn’t been accepted as a transfer yet?</p>
<p>For question 1- yes,but make sure you send it to the 10 schools who are due first- rather than alphabetically.</p>
<p>I am not sure for question 2- sounds like he has been a college student- but not attending currently although hopefully he will be for 2012-2013.
Does FAFSA actually want the name of school, or just want to know who will be attending college?</p>
<p>For question 2, if your son will likely be enrolling in college, you can count him. (we did that when doing DD’s first FAFSA/Profiles when her big bro was a college senior. DD had not yet been accepted…but we sure anticipated she would be in college).</p>
<p>At the end of the day, the college will want verification from your son’s university that HE is in college at least 1/2 time, and your son’s new college will want the same from your daughter’s school. If you cannot provide this documentation or your son does not in fact go to school, the colleges CAN (and likely WILL) reduce your need based aid because your need will be less with only ONE in college.</p>
<p>emeraldkity4
My S is still a “student” at the private university, but cannot afford classes there right now so he is taking full time classes at community college in the meantime. The private school will hold his spot for 2 years…so he has one more. If he could hit a money jackpot he could finish at his private university (he’s a junior), but that doesn’t look promising which is why he applied to cheaper state schools. If he can transfer to one of them, then he’ll go that route. On his FAFSA it asks what school he is attending/enrolled in so they can send our information to that school in case they want to offer him assistance. Our EFC has always been super high, which is why he is sinking, and although the private school wanted to help him financially they couldn’t because our EFC was so high. As you know FAFSA looks at just one small piece of financial life and has no idea what the reality of anyone’s financial situation is, but I was hoping this year he might have the opportunity to get something with the addition of his sister starting college and her schools in the $40-$60K/yr range. I hope we’ll do a little better with the CSS Profile for my D’s schools.</p>
<p>I hope the schools your daughter is applying to meet full need for ALL accepted students. Otherwise, you may not net the need based aid you need to cover those $40K-$60K costs.</p>
<p>Re: your son…when my son was a senior, his little sis was a freshman. My son’s school didn’t give two hoots about how much <em>I</em> was spending on his sister…they only cared that she was enrolled more than half time. Ditto my daughter’s school. They didn’t care how much her brother’s college costs were…only that he was in college more than half the time.</p>
<p>Just FYI…when my DD was a freshman and her brother a senior, our EFC was 1/2 what it had been before. The school, which does not meet full need, gave my son $250 in additional scholarship aid for the year. His EFC decreased by $22,000.</p>
<p>Thanks, thumper1. When we informed my son’s school that he needed to leave due to finances they told us to contact them if anything changed financially…e.g. additional medical bills, other students in college, etc. They are a private school so I think they have discretionary funds available that some other schools may not.</p>
<p>Our EFC has increased 3 years running so I’m realistic about it never being in a range that will be useful (thus the name of this string). I do however, want to fill out the form truthfully, and I fill it out so that one of them may be eligible for a loan or work study. </p>
<p>My D chose schools that give merit aid first and foremost and we are hoping that she will get invitations to compete for even more monies via Honors Program competitions. This required a tremendous amount of extra work on her part with additional applications/essays/and LORs, but she knew there were few options…on top of all that she wants to pursue an MT degree which requires auditions and a substantial application pool due to low %-ages of acceptances. Her application list was 14. She wrote over 20 different essays. She had 39 LORs written by 4 different academic teachers, 1 counselor, and 3 others that know her artistically. She applied EA at every school that would allow her. She has received 10 academic acceptances so far and no rejections. Artistically, she has one rejection so far. I’m so proud of the effort she has put into this process and her understanding that certain schools were just unattainable and had to be removed from the list. She has realized through the process that she can probably be happy just about anywhere.</p>
<p>For us, even state schools are up in the 20K/yr range, so we allowed her to apply to any schools we thought might be able to meet that annual amount because she really does want to move away. When all the packages are in we will simply do what we can for both kids. However, taking out large loans for them is not an option we will take.</p>