FAFSA deadlines???

[choirfarm]

I was just browsing at Baylor and happened to hit financial aid calendar when I meant to put in calculator. I noticed that they expected the form using your 2009 tax form to be in my March 1st.. UMM, taxes are not due until April 15th, but they expect you to be able to put that in??

Edited March 21, 2010 by choirfarm

[creekland]

Yes, we filed ours back in Jan. You just have to click "will file" on your application. Once we had completed our taxes, then you go back and update based on real numbers. Since we had our 2009 W forms, not much changed as we had based it on that year.

[Kareni]

I concur with Creekland that you should file now with estimates based on last year's taxes and then update when you have more current numbers. It's important to do this as soon as possible since financial aid can sometimes be a first come, first served proposition. You don't want to child to lose out based on a late request.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[K-FL]

Plus now that you're in "FAFSA Land," you start doing your taxes earlier. If you don't have your preparer e-file, you can mail them anytime you like. It's been a kick in my procrastinator to have to do FAFSA yearly.:tongue_smilie:

[choirfarm]

Ok, first of all my son is a 9th grader so I have some time. That said, we can't do it earlier. We are still waiting for a K-1 from one of our entitities. Our taxes are REALLY complicated...I mean like 40 pages we file every year. We visited our accountantant a couple of weeks ago, but we don't have all of our paperwork back until the middle of FEB to even be able to start and as I said this one place s apparantly late, she said she typically doesn't get it until April and all the other ones that have ths have to wait until the last minute to file. Our income changes tons from year to year. I'm not sure we could do it early.

 

 

We will not get any need based aid. But yall said we have to file it for merit aid.

[creekland]

It's ok that you can't file the current year's taxes until April. You can still fill out the Fafsa based on your best estimate (from the previous year or otherwise) and then update it when you have the real numbers. It's still counted as filed for the deadline.

 

Not all schools require it for merit aid. Check with those you are interested in to see if they do.

 

And... they are talking about doing a Federal Aid overhaul, so perhaps it'll be different by the time you need to be concerned with it. I keep hoping... :001_smile:

[TravelingChris]

Most schools don't require FAFSA for merit aid. This is a strange requirement that some schools do. Even if they do, since you are not going to actually use any federal aid, it is not important to be very accurate. The people who need to be accurate as close to reality as they can are people who are expecting need based aid. That is because you don't want to be in violation of federal law if you get aid. On the other hand, overstating your income is no offense at all and you can try to be realistic but err on the high side of your income and check the form, will file taxes instead of have filed taxes.