weird FAFSA thing ... anyone know what happened?

[Laura in CA]

This is a little upsetting -- because I don't know what happened. My son & I got an email from FAFSA yesterday (April 1st) saying that his "FAFSA Correction was processed successfully." Huh?!? We haven't made any corrections since mid-February!

 

Oh, the letter goes on to say: "This FAFSA Correction was made by a Financial Aid Administrator (FAA) at your school. If you think you need to make additional corrections, contact your FAA before doing so."  (But ... my son's not AT a "school"!  :confused1: )

 

At the FAFSA site, under my son's "Correction History," it lists various corrections (when we added schools; imported our IRS data; etc.) and the dates and who made the correction ("Student"), and at the top is this latest one, "submitted by College."  (which college?!  :confused:  )

 

I checked all the entries on his SAR (student aid report), and I don't see any changes, even in the list of (10) colleges to which the FAFSA was sent. All I can think is that one of the (two) colleges whose offers he has already declined did something like remove themselves from his list -- but why? and could they do this? and neither one is listed on his latest FAFSA anyway! ... He hasn't said yes to any college yet, but even if he had, could it make a "correction" to his FAFSA? Isn't it his document?

 

Maybe it's some April Fool's joke? 

 

Maybe this is normal, and I'm not aware of it -- if so, please enlighten me. Maybe I should call the FAFSA folks? There doesn't seem to be an obvious mechanism for that, and I guess my expectations are low of actually reaching someone helpful -- but again, if anyone has experience contacting FAFSA, I'd love to hear it.

 

There always is -- annoyingly -- an 'error message' on my son's SARs about how he isn't registered for Selective Service (they don't seem to notice that he's 16!). Could it be this?

 

Anyway, any insight into what has happened or what I could/should do (including just ignoring it and not worrying!) would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

 

 

[jenn-]

As it came via email, it could be a fake.  I would look directly on FAFSA website for a contact number and try seeing what is up.  Do not call or click on anything from that email until you know it isn't spam.

[Laura in CA]

 

At the FAFSA site, under my son's "Correction History," it lists various corrections (when we added schools; imported our IRS data; etc.) and the dates and who made the correction ("Student"), and at the top is this latest one, "submitted by College."  (which college?!  :confused:  )

 

 

Yes, I did go directly to the FAFSA site, and a "correction" is listed for 4/01 as being made by "College." Weird! 

Thanks, though!

[Kathy in Richmond]

Yes, it's legit! It happened to both of my kids at one time or another, Laura. When dd was applying four years ago, William and Mary submitted a FAFSA change after receiving copies of our tax forms. They changed a couple of numbers to suit their own methodology, I think (or maybe we made a mistake; it was a complicated year w/ unemployment). It actually worked out to give us a slightly smaller EFC. None of the other colleges changed a thing, though.

[Kathy in Richmond]

Looking a little more closely (memory has a way of getting foggy after a few years!), we'd been selected randomly for FAFSA verification by William & Mary in late February of that year. We had to submit several more detailed documents, and then W&M in turn recalculated our EFC and submitted their corrected FAFSA in late March. Did any of your son's colleges put you through the FAFSA verification process?

[Laura in CA]

Looking a little more closely (memory has a way of getting foggy after a few years!), we'd been selected randomly for FAFSA verification by William & Mary in late February of that year. We had to submit several more detailed documents, and then W&M in turn recalculated our EFC and submitted their corrected FAFSA in late March. Did any of your son's colleges put you through the FAFSA verification process?

 

Thank you for going to the trouble of checking, Kathy! I appreciate it.

 

Well, we did have various hiccups, but we never underwent an official FAFSA verification process. You might remember the (large!) mistake we made on the CSS/PROFILE (but obviously that's a completely separate document from the FAFSA!); and -- well, I guess the only other 'hiccup' was a cryptic email from UC Irvine saying we *may* need to verify some info ... but the email was so broadly worded that I *think* it was just a boilerplate email that covered all the various scenarios; I finally decided they weren't actually asking for verification.

 

I guess I'll have to call them ... Ugh. One more thing to do! Oh well! :) 

Thanks again, Kathy! If I find out anything, I'll report back here.

[mysticmomma]

We've had that before. It seems to happen when the FAA puts in the official cost of attendance.

[Laura in CA]

Thanks! It's reassuring to know that this is apparently something routine.

 

ETA: Has anyone else had this happen??

Also, it's highly annoying that the FAFSA folks just say "College" did this. Which one? We had 10+ colleges listed on our FAFSA, for crying out loud!  :glare:

[Kareni]

We too had this occur back when my daughter was applying to college.  Her listing was also the anonymous "college" but we happened to learn which one it was by chance.  It was not the college she ultimately attended.  I believe in each subsequent year, her college changed one thing or another even though we followed the FAFSA directions carefully.  In her case, the differences were always minor and the overall financial aid offer did not change.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Elisabet1]

Both my children got something similar. I have no clue why. I suspect it must be a computer error.

[Elisabet1]

Oddly, ours says it was submitted by "system." So it is not even saying "college."

[flyingiguana]

Could be someone got in to look and then clicked save when they left.  Even if they didn't change anything.

[Laura in CA]

We too had this occur back when my daughter was applying to college.  Her listing was also the anonymous "college" but we happened to learn which one it was by chance.  It was not the college she ultimately attended.  I believe in each subsequent year, her college changed one thing or another even though we followed the FAFSA directions carefully.  In her case, the differences were always minor and the overall financial aid offer did not change.

 

 

 

Both my children got something similar. I have no clue why. I suspect it must be a computer error.

 

Thanks, Kareni and Elisabet1! It's reassuring to know we're not the only ones.

 

Could be someone got in to look and then clicked save when they left.  Even if they didn't change anything.

 

OK, that makes sense. I don't see any changes ...

 

Oddly, ours says it was submitted by "system." So it is not even saying "college."

 

Huh -- that's weirder than mine lol.

 

I see this issue a lot on college confidential.  Since we don't fill it out, I've never investigated it.  But you could do a search on college confidential to find out.

 

Good idea -- I always forget about CC, but I'll go check!

 

Thanks, everyone!

[ThisIsTheDay]

I worry so much about this that even reading this thread makes my stomach start jumping. 

 

We couldn't get the electronic signature to work for dd this year, so our submission "failed" and we had to do just the signature part via regular mail. 

 

And on Friday, I got an email that said we began a change that we didn't complete.  I think it's because we went back in once more time to see if we could sign electronically before we mailed in the signature page.  Dh called, was assured that everything was done and perfect, and a few hours later, we received an email saying that it was successfully submitted.

 

So stressful for me.