Wow, you all have my curiosity up regarding the CSULB scholarship! I cannot believe a four year school would only offer a large scholarship for two years…perhaps the second two years it changes a bit (ie: doesn’t include on campus housing or similar)? I do hope there is a reasonable explanation…
@LKnomad I agree- and I’m not even from CA. Same amount of money, just spread out, looks more appealing
I know every one is still in waiting mode on schools and scholarships and working on FAFSA and other financial stuff, but I wanted to mention one thing about sending the kids off to to school while I am thinking of it. For most of you, your kids will be at least 18 when the leave for college. It is a good idea to have them execute a simple Power of Attorney in your home state authorizing you to act on their behalf and receive medical and other communications if necessary. We had my D do this when she went 900 miles out of state for college. I only had to use it one time, though, when she was studying abroad and there was an issue with one of her bank accounts. The POA is still in effect but I would only use it in an emergency. My S won’t be 18 when he leaves for college but we will have him execute one when he turns 18, which will be after his first semester. Anyway, I highly recommend this as there could be a number of situations where you could need to act on their behalf if they are not able to and it will save you a lot of time and hassle.
@readingclaygirl Yes it sounds same amount of scholarship money in 2 years full or 4 years half, but it may actually end up being different if the colleges increase their costs in the subsequent years (a very likely possibility in CA state colleges)
DS’16 and parent taxes done and filed here. Also had to do the college kid’s taxes to fill out the info for the AOTC on our forms. College DD taxes are mostly done but not filed yet. She owes over $3K to state and fed for excessive scholarships, grants and stipends. Ouch.
So apparently my dad realized that some retirement account thing might actually need to be factored into FAFSA so he was trying to call and find out but the line kept hanging up.
@Skates76, sorry about the rough time for D, but glad for happy news from UCF!
I did our Fed and State taxes, haven’t worried about the Local ones yet.
Don’t forget to sign back into the FAFSA after Feb 7 or whdn your taxes are processed to use the IRS data retrieval tool.
@Dragonflygarden, ouch! At least the AOTC hopefully helps a bit.
Don’t forget to mention on her part of FAFSA the amount of taxable scholarships she included in AGI.
@readingclaygirl, does your dad contribute to a 401k? We have to list our 401k contributions on FAFSA, they get added to our income.
@readingclaygirl: “…also love personal touches- my acceptance letter for Russell Sage was personalized and it’s a tiny school, but so many people on campus already know my name! It’s a really good feeling…”
Wow, @readingclaygirl, that is fantastic.
@mommdc Oh dear, We did the FAFSA last week and I didn’t realize that about 401k contributions. Should I correct before I update with my new info from taxes, or should I wait until then? It only took me about four tries to properly get through the entire form because of snafus with social security numbers and using the wrong year’s form. Ugh.
@mommdc Yes but he put that in this was som TSA thing don’t know what that stands for (he does). Sure it’ll it figured out. @Waiting2exhale I know. 
It was part of the reason I fell in love.
The 401K contributions are listed on our W2 so that was easy to find. I’m just wondering how much asset value is down since we submitted CSS profile 
@texaspg - thank you! My son likes both math and engineering, and isn’t quite sure which he’ll be studying. I think he is leaning toward Chem-E and wrote about that in connection to his summer work.
Re dogs at finals…they would not lower my stress, but I’m very glad kids who need them, have them! I find them adorable from a distance.
I keep remembering, in this college season, when DS16 was about eight months old and I would hold him so that he was a bit “taller” than me comparing heads, and puppet him to say, “Hi, Mom” in a low voice. Lo it has come to pass. 
@kittymom1102 - thank you and congrats to you guys too!!!
“@Waiting2exhale I know. It was part of the reason I fell in love.”
Young lady, may they ever hold you as tightly in their embrace.
I cannot tell you how I wish to hear those words and sentiments expressed by this one.
Congratulations to all those who heard from UMD!! We visited it a couple summers ago and it was beautiful and the kids were incredibly friendly and diverse. Our tour guide had a lot of wonderful descriptive things to say, including, “you can make a small college out of a big college and you will find your community here”.
One of the first schools we visited was advertising a rent a puppy program that was a fund raiser for the local humane society and a chance for the kids to de stress a little playing with the adorable pups. I thought it was something incredibly unusual, but sounds like it might be more common than I realized in one form or another.
Another one of those ‘why didn’t they have that when I was in school’ things (-;
@crowlady, I would just wait until you update tax info, but don’t forget about it then. Since it is not listed on tax return it will not automatically be brought over by the data retrieval tool.
I would have forgotten about it too, but Taxact had a FAFSA worksheet I printed out last year that listed the 401k contributions (it knew about them from our W2).
It’s question 94 a in the parent section of FAFSA.
@Waiting2exhale I hope your D finds that place. @fretfulmother Both my dad who is an alum and my cousin who applied expressed that same sentiment about Virginia Tech, over 30 years apart.