I just looked at the FAFSA confirmation email after I submitted and it says I am not eligible for Pell Grants. However, I do believe I meet the criteria to be eligible. I looked at the eligible criteria and I noticed it said “provide consent and approval to have your federal tax information transferred directly into your 2024–25 FAFSA.” I didn’t see that as an option when I was filling the FAFSA out and entered my mom’s tax information manually. Is that the reason I am not eligible? Is there a way I can fix this and link the accounts now?
Also, it says that my SAI cannot be calculated. Is this related to the issue above?
So it is able to be corrected? I’m scared that the local scholarships I’m applying for will see that I’m not Pell-Eligible. Do you know if they care abt that if they’re based on financial need?
Also, on a side note, how do I access my FAFSA submission summary?
You can’t do anything about or with this year’s FAFSA until it is processed. That won’t be until the beginning of March, I believe. Anyone awarding money KNOWS that there has been a HUGE delay with the FAFSA this year.
It sounds like you answered something incorrectly at the beginning of the process. In March, when you can access your FAFSA again, you will need to go back through & make corrections.
Yesterday, I read an article that said a lot of students messed up because they didn’t know their parent’s SSN. Did you answer that your parent doesn’t have an SSN, by any chance?
How long was your mom’s FAFSA account open before you invited her as a parent from your account? When I made mine, it took about a week before it was able to full match with the IRS data.
Before that point, it looked like my daughter would have to enter the data manually (and that kicks out the error you saw, because it HAS to come directly from the IRS). Once it reached full match status (there was no email to inform me of this, I just kept checking), the information transferred over pretty much instantaneously when she invited me.
You shouldn’t have to fill out ANYTHING that was on the tax form. If you see anything like income etc. it is not transferring properly and will not compute an SAI. I don’t know what the process will look like to get the IRS data to come in and overwrite the manual entries.
You’ll get a detailed email from Federal Student Aid that should tell you what to do. But if you’re still confused when the time comes, return to this thread & we’ll try to help.
Oh, that might be it. I invited her immediately after making the account. Did it automatically connect your IRS account or did you have to sign in? Because for me, there wasn’t even an option asking me to connect to the IRS.
When I was reading about the IRS data retrieval tool, it sounded more like you could EITHER enter it manually or use the tool. I guess I misinterpreted it and that’s why I went ahead and filled it out. So I won’t have an SAI until I make the correction in March?
In the meantime, should I send an email to the colleges I sent my FAFSA to and explain the error or should I just wait it out? When do colleges start looking at the FAFSA
No reason to do anything right now. You have to wait until the FAFSA is available for corrections. Everyone is in the same boat.
It’s impossible for us to know what happened with your FAFSA. But it sounds like maybe things got messed up with linking to your parent. If your parent never received an email inviting them to complete the FAFSA, you’ll need to send it once you are able to access your FAFSA. If they did receive it & completed their part, it will override the manual entries you made. But everything is just stuck right now.
You used to be able to choose whether or not you wanted to link to the IRS. Now you are required to do so. It happens without you really knowing that it happened.