@SincererLove I believe I’ve finished the FAFSA… next up is the CSS!
I have a question though on the CSS… did you login using your student’s account for Collegeboard, or did you create your own account?
Total rookie here in regards to the FAFSA. But it seems a college planner somewhere here told all the parents to fill out the FAFSA ASAP because it is “first come first serve.” What exactly does that mean? The grants will run out? The loans will run out?
I saw about three Facebook posts from various “friends” saying “do it now because it is first come first serve!”
@rtidwell DD did not have a good your experience when we visited U of S Car. Nothing bad, just wasn’t her thing. But since they were coming to town, and had invited her, she decided to attend both the Honors College reception and Top Scholars lunch. She met some great people but nothing they said made her want to go back and visit (we aren’t terribly far and she was born there).
@pittsburghscribe there were about 22 students with one parent each along with two alums and staff from U of S Car. Basically they talked while we ate. The recruiter for our area went first. I had found her very personable one on one, but she was flat in front of the crowd and was obviously reading from a script. Next was a rep from the Honors college. He seemed very disorganized. The head of undergraduate admissions was next and she was easy to listen to and have lots of info. Finally the two alums spoke but both were business majors so weren’t of much interest to us. There were no slides but they did give us some handouts in a swag bag. As for attire I saw men in khakis and golf shirts and others in jacket and tie. Women wore a variety as well. DD had on a nice dress and I wore slacks and a nice top with heels.
I worked on CSS and FAFSA today. CSS was kind of painful and intrusive. Depending on the complexity of your financial situation, set aside a couple of hours to a half day. They want everything, every detail of every car you own, your bills, retirement funds, etc.
I decided to go with my kid’s college board account instead of creating my own.
Gosh, just read my post about dd’s disappointment in the Russian dept’s response. If you could understand that mess, amazing! Yikes. I should learn not to post when I am that tired. I hate that we can’t edit here.
@carachel2 Unless a student qualifies for FSEOG, I think those posts are incorrect. I am definitely not a FA expert, but when I was researching FA for the applying to college workshops I offered locally, my understanding was that Pell and student loans are always available. FSEOG funds, otoh, are limited, but they are limited by institution, not the federal govt. I think the student applying to the school first is necessary. If a student hasn’t even applied to a school yet, I am not sure how filling out the FASFA early would help.
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/grants-scholarships/fseog
Fwiw, I would recommend spending some time reading that website bc it explains all of the different federal programs. Not all students are FSEOG eligible bc it is based on need and only offered by certain schools.
We are in no hurry to fill out the FAFSA. It will get done, but definitely not this weekend. We haven’t even applied for pins yet. Unless things have changed, it could take a couple of weeks just to get those.
@Atyraulove wrote
I looked it up here http://css.collegeboard.org/
and it says “use username and password from AP, PSAT, or SAT exam registration for your PROFILE application”
Oh, I forgot-she’s not done with testing. She has IB and AP tests next May. Well, at least I didn’t get all “woo hoo you’re done with testing” with her. She would have been peeved at me.
Congrats on the acceptances of your kids to colleges. Gotta feel good. @carachel2 and @Mom2aphysicsgeek
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I’m at total newbie at the FA stuff, but my daughter created her FSA ID yesterday, and we were able to start filling out the FAFSA last night. I think that your ID needs to be verified (takes a few days) before you have access to later steps like signing loans, etc.
The homecoming dance was last night at my daughter’s school. My daughter decided not attend this year, as she felt it was mostly for freshman, and kids who ‘like to party’. She got a phone call about 10:30 last night from a friend who had somehow become separated from her friends. She was obviously drunk, trying to find another friend’s house (that was about 3/4 of a mile away). While our community is pretty safe (some would dispute this, it’s all relative), it’s still not safe enough to be 17-yr old girl stumbling drunk at 10:30. My daughter hopped in the car and found her friend, asked if she could just take her home, but in the end deposited her at her friends, where some later Snapchats that my daughter shared showed several drunk kids being, well…drunk kids.
I share this only because I know some of those parents. Many of the parents know their kid parties. I’m pretty sure several have no idea. Two of the kids are NMSF. You just never know. We are hoping everyone made it home safe.
@rtidwell …wow. So glad your friend was there for her friend. Wandering around town, lost and drunk= that is a recipe for rape and murder.
Do you know the other parents well?
@rtidwell Thanks for the info. My dh does the FAFSA, but for a few I remember both student and parent had to apply for a pin and you needed the pin to file. It sounds like things have changed somewhat.
Congrats to everyone on the acceptances so far! This is the fun part 
D went to the homecoming dance last night and then a late dinner afterwards. I told her to get back by 12 and she was back with a few minutes to spare. She had fun and is now looking forward to prom. Today she needs to do homework and at least 1 essay.
May I ask what is the consensus for using the additional information section? When it comes to describing the activity, should a paragraph be used or bullet points?
@BigPapiofthree @nw2this @Atyraulove , I used D’s college board account too. I spent more than an hour and got to the schedule A question before admitting defeat that I was not going to finish in one sitting. I didn’t have the return printed, so that may cause the flipping back and forth of screens and more time consuming. Wasn’t going to fill out FAFSA, but will have to do it too!!
@longwood , D’s is in bullet point format, grouped by jobs, volunteer, ECs, similar to resume.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Things changed and we get FSA IDs instead of pins now, and they are good forever I think.
For us, it took One day to get SSNs verified in mid September. I hope I still remember the passwords. 
@BigPapiofthree – American University
Our homecoming isn’t for 4 more weeks. Trying to go shopping for both DD17 and DD20 today. Ugh. I hate shopping.
@klinska If American is the university you were questioning about front loading, they are in the top 10 list of schools accused of doing it. http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2015/06/16/10-colleges-where-upperclassmen-get-less-financial-help
@carachel2 We know most of the parents casually. We knew them quite well back in the grade school years, but not so much now. I think there are a lot of clueless parents out there, and even more who kind of look the other way and hope it (drinking) doesn’t lead to anything serious. Heck, I used to do the same thing (or worse) in high school, so who am I to judge.
@longwood, there were several good ideas discussed for the Additional Info section just a few days/a week back in this thread. I will also add that several posters are not using this section at all. My rough sense is that it was about half and half…?
Our home coming dance is casual. My D2 is a freshman, and she went in jean shorts (jorts =)) ) and a tank top. There are always some kids that are very dressed up, but it’s usually because they are uninformed.
The girls are both skipping homecoming, mostly because “it’s a freshman thing”.
I would really like it if we could knock one application out of the park today. Git 'er done. Somehow, I feel like that pulling the trigger part of it is scaring D17, but I think today is the day we get #2 sent out. Fingers crossed.
I’m trying to decide between UMD and Common App for the next one. There are pros and cons to each. I’m leaning towards advising her to do the common app next because of the 6 (possibly 7?) on there. But on the other hand, getting the UMD one done should be fairly easy because I don’t think it’s super involved.
I dunno.