Lanny Posted September 30, 2020 Share Posted September 30, 2020 The new FAFSA form for the 2021 to 2022 school year will become available on the FAFSA web site on October 1, 2020. This is the URL: https://studentaid.gov/h/apply-for-aid/fafsa (Please note: There are always 2 different forms available, for 2 different school years. Be sure that you complete the one for the correct school year) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almondbutterandjelly Posted September 30, 2020 Share Posted September 30, 2020 Thank you, Lanny! This had dropped completely off my radar. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicholas_mom Posted October 1, 2020 Share Posted October 1, 2020 Thanks for the tip on 2 different school years!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicholas_mom Posted October 1, 2020 Share Posted October 1, 2020 Lanny, what did you put down for homeschoolers? When we input homeschoolers its looping back for us to input the info..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forgiven Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 Lanny, what did you put down for homeschoolers? When we input homeschoolers its looping back for us to input the info..... I selected Home School for the type of diploma, so it never asked for our school name or location. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted October 8, 2020 Author Share Posted October 8, 2020 Follow-on: The FAFSA needs to be submitted for each school year. My DD and I have been busy with other tasks and we are going to do the FAFSA next week. A little late for us this year but the other tasks were higher priority. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BusyMom5 Posted October 9, 2020 Share Posted October 9, 2020 I just want to say this is the noisest application ever! And I do NOT want my kids knowing how much we have. I'm making the accounts and will only give my DD the password if she ends up taking out loans later. If they can have 2 separate logins, they should be able to keep our information private from our kids. If it was not required for other scholarships, I would not fill it out. This is my first of 6 kids, so we will be filling this out for the next 20 years! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted October 9, 2020 Author Share Posted October 9, 2020 @BusyMom5 Well, if you do not like the FAFSA, in my memory you will not like the CSS Profile. DD had to submit that to Carolina and several other schools she applied to and in my memory the CSS Profile was much longer and much more in depth than the FAFSA was. Fortunately, we only had to submit the CSS Profile when DD was applying to be a first-year student. The FAFSA needs to be "renewed" or whatever the word is, before each school year. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted October 24, 2020 Author Share Posted October 24, 2020 Update from the OP. Today, DD and I finally did the FAFSA Renewal. Better late than never! With me in South America and her in her dorm at Carolina, we were exchanging information via WhatsApp Chat. She had the FAFSA site open and would ask me questions, many of which came as big surprises to me and I had to unexpectedly hunt for information I didn't know we would need today. The bottom line is that it took a lot longer than I had anticipated and was harder than I had anticipated, but in the end, DD successfully submitted the FAFSA Renewal today. 🙂 The next step will be the Carolina Audit process. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted October 24, 2020 Author Share Posted October 24, 2020 On 10/9/2020 at 10:58 AM, BusyMom5 said: I just want to say this is the noisest application ever! And I do NOT want my kids knowing how much we have. I'm making the accounts and will only give my DD the password if she ends up taking out loans later. If they can have 2 separate logins, they should be able to keep our information private from our kids. If it was not required for other scholarships, I would not fill it out. This is my first of 6 kids, so we will be filling this out for the next 20 years! The FAFSA isn't for Scholarships, it is a form one must fill out to get Federal Financial Aid. But also, many schools will not consider giving Scholarships, if there is no FAFSA form on file. And, many families don't file the FAFSA, assuming incorrectly they would not qualify for Federal Financial Aid. Of those who do not file the FAFSA, I believe they say approximately 50 (?) % of those students would, in fact, qualify for some Federal Financial Aid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbollin Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 19 hours ago, Lanny said: The FAFSA isn't for Scholarships, it is a form one must fill out to get Federal Financial Aid. But also, many schools will not consider giving Scholarships, if there is no FAFSA form on file. Not disagreeing with you. FAFSA is the federal thing. In my state, they (the state people who oversee this stuff) insist that for certain state scholarship programs, the FAFSA is the application for those state scholarships and state grants maybe they (state) mean something different than I took it to mean, or maybe there's hair splitting differences in definitions that I don't care to learn. just felt like chatting a bit. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted October 25, 2020 Author Share Posted October 25, 2020 12 minutes ago, cbollin said: Not disagreeing with you. FAFSA is the federal thing. In my state, they (the state people who oversee this stuff) insist that for certain state scholarship programs, the FAFSA is the application for those state scholarships and state grants maybe they (state) mean something different than I took it to mean, or maybe there's hair splitting differences in definitions that I don't care to learn. just felt like chatting a bit. I suspect that is extremely common, both with respect to State Grants and Scholarships, Etc. and to "outside" scholarships. It is much easier for them to look at the FAFSA. When DD was applying to universities, some of them (including Carolina) also required the "CSS Profile". That, in my memory, was far more invasive than the FAFSA was... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted October 27, 2020 Author Share Posted October 27, 2020 Another follow-on from the OP: This morning, I received an email from FAFSA that they successfully processed the FAFSA Renewal DD submitted to them on Saturday afternoon the 24th. They did that on the 25th. They suggested 2 things which I asked my DD to do when her very busy schedule permits. The first is to check the "SAR". I would like to know what the "EFC" is. Also, they suggested trying the IRS Data Retrieval Tool. We have *never* been able to get that to work, I suspect because of Overseas Mailing Addresses, but I asked DD to give that a try. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skimomma Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 It took a few tries for us to get the IRS data retrieval tool to work. It kept saying the address was not correct. I started by typing the address exactly as it appears on our taxes, which did not work. It took maybe 10 tries to find one that did. Think the following variations: 123 Second St. 123 2nd St. 123 2ND ST 123 2nd Street 123 SECOND ST I cannot even remember which one worked but I was surprised. I'm glad it did because it for sure made things easier in the long run. Now we just have to sit and twiddle our thumbs until late spring when dd's school starts accepting "special circumstances" adjustment requests. Right now our EFC is more than our current annual income. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted October 28, 2020 Author Share Posted October 28, 2020 skimomma Thank you for sharing your experience with the I.R.S. Data Retrieval tool. I found your experience very interesting. I thought our issue was because we have an Overseas Mailing Address. I copied and pasted what you wrote for my DD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skimomma Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 I would not have even thought to try all of those except we have to do something similar any time I have our mail stopped via the USPS website. I figured they are both federal entities so they are probably equally picky about address configuration. If only I actually wrote down the one that works so I don't play this game every single time I go to stop our mail, my life would be that much easier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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