The time has finally come for my oldest to apply to college.
The FAFSA opened on October 1st, and now I have to actually fill it out and verify my years of assumptions. They actually opened a beta program so you could start filling it out before the first, but I was not bold enough to do so.
Then, to my shock, my oldest actually took the initiative to start the FAFSA themselves.
Both the parent(s) and child need to have a login for the FAFSA experience. My wife didn’t need a login because we are married and file our taxes jointly. But, The FAFSA is meant to be completed by the child as it is their financial future at stake.
I was shocked at how little I needed to do to complete my portion of the form. I gave permission to connect to the IRS to import my financials, and I was done. I didn’t need to answer any questions about assets, I’m assuming because my income was so low, and I just had to wait for my child to finish their portion.
I don’t think there was much effort for my oldest, and they forwarded me the email saying that FAFSA will take up to three business days to finalize. It did give a preview that said our SAI should be 0 and that they could receive up to a $7,395 Pell Grant. After two days I logged in and saw that the FAFSA was processed and my child confirmed that it said processed and had the same data as the preview suggested.
Now, completing the CSS Profile and individual schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UChicago) is a whole other story.
