Financial Aid/FASFA

[speechieccc]

Hi everyone!

 

I have some questions/concerns about Financial Aid. I just received an email from a school stating that their FASFA deadline is approaching and if I want assistance with paying for school I need to submit the FASFA before the due date. However, I was not aware we needed to do this before even hearing back from schools. Does anyone know what the details are on this? Do I have to fill out FASFA before hearing back from schools due to Assistantships/Fellowships? Please let me know if anyone has any helpful info!

 

Thank you!!

[eeee1923]

If anything filling out a FAFSA doesn't take that long and you can use estimated values for now and just submit a SAR (student aid report) once you have done your 2014 tax returns.

[laurengreen1]

You usually submit the FAFSA at the beginning of the year so that you're covered if/when you start school in the fall. As the previous poster said, it doesn't take that long to do and it's pretty general. Wherever you end up going, you're going to need to have completed a FAFSA if you want financial aid. Just make sure it's sent to all the schools you applied to.

[moosemoose]

Do you think schools use the list of your FAFSA schools to help make admissions decisions? I'm worried that because I'm applying to so many schools (9), the individual schools might notice all the other schools listed on my FAFSA and decide that I must not be particularly interested in their specific program.

[onedayslp]

The only federal aid available to grad students are loans and work-study. You will get a guaranteed loan amount of $20,500 per academic year regardless of when you submit the FAFSA. For that reason, it doesn't really matter when you do it unless you really want a work-study position (most schools have limited if any positions for grad students). Assistantships/fellowships are based on merit, so you wouldn't need the FAFSA for that. I would say at least wait until you have your taxes done to submit it.

 

As far as looking at your FAFSA for admissions decisions-- it's highly unlikely. Admissions and financial aid are in different departments, so admissions people don't look at your FAFSA. They would have to go digging around for it, and I doubt they would want to know *that* badly where else you applied.

[neucool]

If they wanted to know where else you were applying, they would've just asked on their application. I had a few schools that did.