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College Acceptance/Financial Aid


goldberry
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Usually the acceptance letter comes first and the financial aid/merit awards come later.

 

Be sure to keep an eye on email and the online student portal.  Not everything comes by USPS mail these days!

 

She is a junior this year, just trying to get an understanding of the process.  There a few schools she is interested in that will not be an option without the aid/awards.  So from what you are saying, she could get an acceptance but still have to wait to see about aid before making a decision.

 

How long does that usually take?

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Yes.  The admissions office makes the acceptance decisions and THEN the financial aid office determines the aid package.  Add in any departments that need to make scholarship decisions and it can be a long drawn out process before you have the full picture.  It can easily be well into the spring before you have everything you need to make a decision.

 

You generally have until May 1 to make a decision and notify the colleges. 

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I was really confused with our first, too!  The acceptance letter comes first, and the scholarship award letter (and there may be more than one) comes next.

 

For one school, it was 3-4 months after my dd's acceptance, so much later that we thought she wouldn't be getting anything at all!  (It turns out that was actually her highest scholarship offer.)

 

We did have to initiate the departmental scholarships ourselves.  

Edited by J-rap
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It can be such a drawn out process. Some schools have automatic merit aid. That's usually announced in the acceptance packet, that may arrive separately from any acceptance letter or e mail. Some schools have separate competitive scholarships that require an additional application. Some of those applications require an invite. Then there is need-based aid. That usually happens in the spring after the FAFSA (or other documents) are submitted, but some EA schools will give you an early aid offer.

 

It is confusing, indeed, and a time consuming process. You are likely to not have full info until spring, which is past the deadlines for applying to most colleges; it's the reason some of our kids have extensive lists of potential colleges. So many factors can make a school an unrealistic prospect in the end.

Edited by Gr8lander
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The financial aid process is changing beginning with the the 2017/2018 school year.  For the 2016/2017 school year and prior, folks filled out the FAFSA financial aid stuff based on the prior year's tax return.  So for the upcoming 2016/2017 school year, aid is based on the 2015 tax return.  In January/Feb of 2016, most folks filed estimated tax information on their FAFSA and then will update when the actual tax return is filed--The conventional wisdom is you file the FAFSA as early as possible to get the best aid, assuming you qualify.  This means that you will typically be filing the FAFSA before regular admissions decisions (not early action or rolling admissions) are known and you list the school on the FAFSA form anyway.  

 

Beginning for the 2017/2018 school year the timing is changing so that folks will be filing the FAFSA in the fall of 2016 using the 2015 tax return.  This should result in the financial aid decisions coming earlier in the process instead of the March/April.  And yes, because of this transition, it means that for both the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 financial aid will be based on the SAME 2015 financial data, so some folks are going to benefit or be hurt, if they happened to have an anomoly in their income in 2015.  

 

Not sure how the change impacts folks going through the admissions process in future years.  I assume you will be filing the FAFSA forms at the same time you are working on submitting the college apps.

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Beginning for the 2017/2018 school year the timing is changing so that folks will be filing the FAFSA in the fall of 2016 using the 2015 tax return.  This should result in the financial aid decisions coming earlier in the process instead of the March/April.  And yes, because of this transition, it means that for both the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 financial aid will be based on the SAME 2015 financial data, so some folks are going to benefit or be hurt, if they happened to have an anomoly in their income in 2015.  

 

 

 

That's kind of weird.  So I could have a totally different 2016 return, but I don't file that on FAFSA or do anything, just stick with the 2015 numbers until the next year?  (That might actually help us, we had a lousy 2015! Hoping for a better 2016,,,)

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