3 schools have asked for my guardianship proof. All 3 of them did not approve my court ordered physical custody at first. I had to explain the first school how a non-parent with custody is considered legal guardian for them to approve my document; the 2nd one flat out rejected my document; the 3rd asked for an appeal letter from my teacher or counselor.
So…Is my brother really my guardian? We live in Virginia and I CANNOT find a single reliable source regarding physical custody and legal guardianship in virginia.
However, I don’t want to attend any of these schools. The school I want to go to (JMU) will only ask for financial aid documents after I pay my deposit. Should I take the risk and commit to jmu?
Court ordered physical custody is not the same as guardianship, I don’t think.
Do you have any papers that legally make your brother your GUARDIAN?
If you don’t want to attend any of these schools you mentioned…and you want to attend JMU…you need to contact JMU with your question about what they will require should you commit to attending their school.
You can have a situation where someone has physical custody of a child, but not the right to make legal decisions. The person who has the right to make legal decisions is your guardian. Look at your court papers again to see exactly what type of custody your brother has (physical and legal, or just physical).
One thing…if your parents are really totally out of the picture…totally…and well documented and for a good reason…this is a situation where maybe you could request a dependency override from JMU. So…ask about that too given your circumstances.
The school I want to go to (JMU) will only ask for financial aid documents after I pay my deposit. Should I take the risk and commit to jmu
Are you saying that you have applied and were accepted and they want you to commit before they will review your application for financial aid? This does not make sense - schools calculate financial aid all the time for prospective students, and they don’t expect them to pay anything (other than the application fee) before they give them the information to make a decision.
Is there something they say is missing from your financial aid application before they will look at it?
But that wouldn’t mean he’d have to pay to commit to attending without them giving him information - from his quote above they are saying they will only ask for FA documents after he pays a deposit.
Perhaps the school is saying because it is late in the process, and he missed a deadline, they won’t be able to process his application until after the commitment date. Many schools handle freshman FA applications within a given window, and then they spend the next several months trying to get FA applications for returning students. Which is a little different than saying the school won’t ask until he pays.
OP might mean that JMU will not ask for underlying documentation till after deposit has been paid. But still seems weird. I was involved in a true legal guardianship situation and seems like colleges wanted to see the papers during the normal freshman applicant FinAid process, not later.
Although…JMU is FAFSA only, apparently, and I don’t think we had to document guardianship for the FAFSA only colleges till after accepting enrollment.
Based on information OP provided, it doesn’t appear this is a true legal guardianship as defined by FAFSA so all bets are off.
Physical custody is not court ordered legal guardianship. Yes, your brother can have physical custody of someone, but that does not mean that he is your legal Guardian. You still have a legal relationship with your parents.
In the situation that you described, you are not an independent student.
The school is looking for the income and assets from the parent she lived with the most in the past 3365 days. If neither one, you have to go with the parent you last lived with
If you feel and can prove that your relationship is irreparably broken, then you can die for a dependency override.
Physical custody without legal custody is common, and happens in these kinds of situations all the time:
Divorced parents, one has legal custody, they shard physical custody
Foster parents have physical custody, but the state retains legal custody
Parents give physical custody to a friend or relative for a child to finish high school while they relocate
I used to get physical custody of the kids I babysat for when their parents traveled. They’d give me a power of attorney limited to the time they were gone.
Where are the parents? They probably still have legal custody unless the state took it.
OP, you have previously posted about this situation with your brother, and have said that he’s been your guardian for the past two years.
You also said your parents are non-citizens who do not live in the U.S. and will give you $50K for college. So, this does not seem to be a situation where they have been declared unfit and their rights as parents have been terminated. There are at least a couple of possible scenarios here:
1. Your brother, who is in the U.S. with you, has been appointed by the court to act as your guardian. If so, then there is a court order that gives him both legal AND physical custody over you. This court order is what you need to give to the schools FA offices. If this is the situation, then you would use his financial information for FAFSA purposes.
2. The court has appointed a government official to be your legal guardian, and you are considered a "ward of the court." Your brother has only physical custody. In this case, you may need to use your parents' financial information for FAFSA purposes. You have said that they sold property and have some cash assets they are giving to you.
In either case, you are not considered independent. As noted above, you will have to put someone's financial information for FAFSA purposes.
I suspect you are in situation #1 above. You need to read your court order carefully. You said the schools rejected your documentation. If you don't have the right paperwork, you will need to go to the courthouse where your guardianship was granted, ask for the entire file, and look through it to get the right document to show to the schools. In many cases, it's a "judgment" or "decree" or "final order" or even "letters of guardianship" that is needed.
Virginia law on guardianship over a minor is online, and you can read it here.
https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacodefull/title64.2/subtitleIV/partC/
In my experience, the CC posters really want to help, but they need the entire story and accurate information so they can give you appropriate guidance.
Good luck, and keep us updated.
If this student is in LEGAL court appointed guardianship, The student is then independent for financial aid purposes…and only the student information is used on the FAFSA.
I hope the OP clarifies…because it sounds like the OP is living with her sibling…who is supporting her…and can declare her as a tax dependent, for example. BUT it’s very unclear if the sibling has LEGAL court appointed guardianship.
On the prior post, the OP WANTED to use her parents’ income and not her brother’s. That most likely is correct.
There is a difference between ‘court approved’ guardianship and ‘court ordered.’ Many people ask the court to approve orders they have agreed to - custody, property disputes,civil suits.
If the court is going to terminate parental custody, there is a lot more to the process.
I think here the parents agreed that the OP should live with her brother. That doesn’t change the FAFSA definitions of whose info goes in the parent’s section.
Also…this student needs to really determine her residency status if she is applying to instate public universities. If her parents are her true guardians and live overseas…she needs to find out if she is eligible for instate status.
From that thread in August 2017, it sounds like the student is living in the U.S. with her brother so she can attend high school here. It doesn’t sound like the parents are out of the picture at all…they just live in a different country.
I hope the OP clarifies this info. Really…impossible to give decent and correct information with the conflicting info posted on multiple threads.