<p>I submitted D’s FAFSA two weeks ago. Deleted/added the eleventh school today. Right after that we got an email from one of the first ten schools saying that I had forgotten to identify my D as female or register for the selective service if she was male. Now, of course, I can’t fix that and add back the first ten schools for about three days until the corrected version to school 11 is processed. How big of a problem is this?</p>
<p>It won’t take long to process, so you’ll be able to update soon. It’s just an extra couple days. Let the school know you will send it in a couple days. Don’t forget to sign the corrections with both your PINs!</p>
<p>By the way, I just found out that this is going to be a huge issue this year … the FAFSA allows students to skip gender when completing the form this year. The problem is, Selective Service checks against gender in the processing logic. So if the student does not indicate female, she will get a flag for selective service. Schools can’t just say, “We know she is a female so therefore we will waive her SS requirement.” They must actually collect documentation to put on file regarding the reason there was no match. So … if your daughter doesn’t indicate “female” when completing the FAFSA, she may be asked to provide a statement or fill out a form or update her FAFSA … however the school decides to handle it … in order to resolve the conflicting information.</p>
<p>The moral to this story: Always answer the optional questions!</p>