@Almondjoy1 - I’m honestly not sure he’s coherent. He really had little choice - this is the Kairos he picked based on everything else in his schedule, and he found out much later that the Senior Seminar presentations would be today. No possibility of changing either date. The only small consolation - there were about 5-6 of them from his Seminar who were all at Kairos together, so they’re in the same boat today. What a great opportunity for your son to be a leader, though! The leaders yesterday looked really happy, but pretty exhausted, too.
FWIW - if DS has AT&T, you can add an International Plan and backdate it to when he arrived there. I travel internationally pretty often, and about half the time would space adding the extra coverage, and would have to add it from wherever I was. And if DS has T-Mobile, Canada and Mexico are now considered “domestic.” I switched just a couple of months ago, abandoning AT&T and picking up T-Mobile, precisely because of the better international coverage.
@Mom2jl OK, thanks! This is all the more motivation for S to rule out a few CSS schools so I don’t have to do the work of printing them out and sending hard copies.
S was on Kairos last week and came back Sat night and he was also wiped out. I know that when I did a similar retreat, I was totally exhausted as well. It’s emotionally draining, plus we were up late and I didn’t sleep all that well. You need a retreat to recover from the retreat. Having said all of that, I think S really got a lot out of it.
@CAMidwestMom - yeah, I think S got a lot out of Kairos too. He was pretty wiped out last night and is running on adrenaline and fumes today, I’m sure. Tomorrow is “catch up” for everything he missed being out 3 days. It’s a good thing we’re entirely uninterested in that very large sporting event that is taking place in our general vicinity tomorrow! I think a lot of Kairos will really settle in when he’s caught up and can breathe again.
I saw your post a few pages back about a possible thread where adults could post our majors, what we thought we were going to do, and what we do now - or something like that. Did you ever find such a thread? It sounds pretty interesting, and might also provide some perspective to at least a few 16s who are really stressed about the future right now.
We have completed CSS profile with our 2014 taxes. We will file our 2015 taxes in the last week of Mar 2016, because that’s when we get our tax documents from my employer. There is no way we can get that early from my employer.
According to IDOC the deadline to upload the updated 2015 taxes is 1st Mar. So it means we cannot meet this deadline. I will be calling those individual colleges on Monday onwards and see what they say about my situation.
My questions is those parents who had similar situation in the past or anybody else who has any suggestions ?
If you completed the FAFSA with your 2014 tax documents, is that sufficient if you haven’t completed your 2015 taxes? We have a February 15, 2016 deadline for a college giving a full tuition scholarship. I’m not sure that our taxes will be completed in time to have the IRS send our information by 2/15. Help!!! This is my first time dealing with FAFSA.
FAFSA is done and we had to complete CSS last fall for one of D16’s schools that required it during application season for EA. We are down to one CSS school on the list that has a chance of being affordable and it looks like I won’t have to do the manual correction and submission thing on the CSS unless D receives one of the lottery-like scholarships she applied to from that school, so we will be waiting on that one.
D was pretty stoic at learning that she didn’t advance to the next scholarship round on one of her favorite schools. This is an OOS public and with only the initial scholarship they offered it is not affordable, so that is falling off the list. Unlike the last lottery scholarship miss, which wasn’t as big of a deal financially since that school was already affordable with their initial scholarship offer, she seems more relieved than upset. Winnowing her list down and not having to guess and worry and hope about these notifications is a stress reliever for her and I think her decision is starting to come into focus. She has three schools that we already know are affordable and two of them are top of her list schools, so a bit of disappointment isn’t derailing her like it did a few weeks ago.
One of her airplane schools, the ones too far away to drive to reasonably, is having regional receptions in our area that she can attend in March. They recruit heavily in the Northeast so that is not surprising and very convenient. Her other airplane school has a three day set of events the next weekend after that, so she and DW are flying down for two day’s worth, then taking a late flight back so that she can captain her team in the Science Olympiad regionals. It would have been really nice for them to have the entire three days plus a free day down in Florida if it was any other weekend, but I really admire her dedication to her teammates. (-:
No doubt, @Midwest67
I must say, I am now glad I had not submitted either our FAFSA or CSS with 2014 taxes. At this point I don’t think I’ll have to make updates or make corrections.
DS has 3 CSS schools- since we haven’t submitted yet- I am assuming I haven’t been notified about the IDOC? Do all CSS schools require that?
Looks like most of us are working on financial aid docs today, so I’m not alone in my misery. I’m 99% done with our taxes, but I’m still waiting to receive one more form. I noticed today that two schools on IDOC show a 3/1 deadline, but on the schools’ websites, the deadlines say 2/15. That puzzled me…then I saw this on the IDOC FAQs:
I don’t know how we, or anyone else, could logistically meet a 2/15 deadline.
@collegemom2boys - Happy Birthday and Congratulations to your son!
@justathought1, yes for initial FAFSA submission it is ok to estimate with 2015 paystubs or use 2014 income if it is similar to 2015. You don’t want to miss deadlines.
But with the understanding that an effort will be made to get tax returns completed as soon as able (not wait till April) and update once tax returns are done and import tax info into FAFSA with help of IRS retrieval tool when tax return has been processed to verify the information.
Because you want to have an aid package that is based on accurate financial information. So that you can have a good idea about affordability of a school.
Does anyone know of any journalism pieces on the College Board? I am interested in their history, leaders, organizational structure, financials, and future goals. At this point, I feel the only place an organization like the College Board should exist is a fictional dystopian novel.
APs, PSAT leading to NM, SAT, SAT subject tests, CSS, and now IDOC. Who are these guys? Why do they get so much say in so many lives? Why should we trust them with so much information?
Maybe in a few days I will think I’m being drama queen, but right now I don’t trust the College Board as far I could throw it. Thanks for letting me rant. This group is a great place to “lose it” on occasion.
@palm715 I feel your pain. I was just thinking that I want to talk to S about narrowing down his choices so I can lighten the workload of amending all of the CSS profiles and mailing them in. We did two international adoptions just over ten years ago and I have serious paperwork panic when I start having to resubmit things and worry about a slight detail derailing things. Brings back a lot of stress lol. Seriously though, you are right, they have their tentacles in everything.
The College Board does have an extremely overbearing presence in this process but I have more respect for them than I do for the ACT people because they actually approved my disability accommodations.
@Mysonsdad for IDOCs it doesn’t connect directly to the IRS so you either scan in the forms or use a pdf from your tax software. It doesn’t have to wait to be accepted by the IRS.
@happymochi, I just had a breakdown telling my wife about your post. The IDOC says the date and then says it may be wrong? Why would they mislead people? Why not just post, “Check colleges for deadlines” instead of posting a date and then making people find out if the date they posted is the actual date it is due? UGH!!! These people!!!
Are you positive about that @dcplanner (I am hoping you are). From what I have read on here I thought it was connected to the IRS. Didn’t someone say something like it takes 2 weeks after your file your taxes for IDOC to get them? Maybe I am just wrong. So if thats the case, now I have to scan everything into IDOC even though I just punched the numbers into FAFSA?
I was going to submit my non IDOC schools today and then submit IDOC schools later (after I thought they had info from the IRS). Is that how everyone else is doing it?
Also, one school says if you use IDOC you don’t need to correct CSS Profile. Here is the quote,
“We’ll update the CSS Profile with your tax information when it gets to IDOC. If you need to make other corrections that won’t naturally be updated by your taxes (such as a substantial change in assets or family size), submit a letter in your IDOC Packet.”
