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What's this FAFSA all about


aaronop

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Hello all,

I've been accepted to my dream school for an MFA, and offered a half-tuition waiver for my first year from my department.

I'm wondering how the FAFSA thing works. I'm an American but I've been attending schools in Canada so I don't really understand the FAFSA system. I filled out my FAFSA application on time and all. Will I get notified of an offer for federal student aid or loans or whatnot at some point? Do I have to accept an offer of admission before I find out about federal aid? Do I have to go to a bank to apply for federal student loans? What's the dilly here? Any help would be mightily appreciated.

Many thanks

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Usually FAFSA is only filled out by students who are in community colleges or are undergraduate students at 4 year colleges. PhD students in math, science, and engineering generally do not fill out the FAFSA since they are already funded. There are some cases where graduate students should fill out FAFSA just in case though like those who are in unfunded programs. Actually now that I thought about it, I think all graduate students should fill out FAFSA anyways even those who are in PhD math, science, and engineering programs since FAFSA is free and there is nothing to lose. So fill out the FAFSA.

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The FASFA thing is very formulaic. Or at least it seemed that way when I was in undergrad. My advice would be to call the financial aid office at the schools you are looking at to see what FASFA aid you could expect. I also suspect that money directly from the FASFA would not change much from school to school. I could be wrong. However what most likely would change between different schools is department aid and scholarships based on FASFA related need. Not sure if this second part applies to grad students as most are already starting with some amount of department funding.

Naturally it could be different for grad school, but I think the advice of calling the financial aid office may still apply.

Good Luck.

Edited by queller
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