College Student Aid Report?

Question

I filled out my FAFSA (financial aid) report and received my student report form, my question is when will I hear anything from the school or will I have to contact them concerning a reward letter.

Answer 1

The college will contact you, usually by mail, but possibly by e-mail (you may want to make sure that you have listed your college's e-mail addresses so that they pass your spam filter) once they begin file review and to make awards. Normally you need to give it 4 to 6 weeks after filing the FASFA if you are going to a fairly large college. Financial aid offices are usually made up of small staffs and it takes time to review and award thousands of applications each year. My office has three professional staff who review over 5,000 applications a year and award something to well over half of them. And only about a third of our student population applies for aid.

If you have not heard anything from the school about aid after 6 weeks, call and ask, politely, please, it gets you further with folks who are likely to remember the names of rude students, or send an e-mail to inquire. Be prepared with your name and Social Security Number or student ID number (new students should check their acceptance letters for this one and keep track of it). Most colleges will not give out information without these positive identifiers.

Answer 2

The school's financial aid report should happen within the next few weeks. The report will show a combination of grants (if your EFC qualified), school scholarships, student loans, and the campus work study program. I recommend next year filing as close as you can get to January 1 because it can influence the financial aid packages sometimes depending on how many scholarships were distributed. I will include some readings from free resources.

First, the college's financial aid office and website has a list of private scholarships offered from outside organizations and companies. Sometimes a college major's website will list scholarships, too.

Second, the public library has a book listing scholarships with some not even listed on the web.

Third, the high school guidance office has a list of local scholarships and state scholarships & grants.

Fourth, a campus work study job can help with money needed during the school year. The program is funded by the federal government. It will be a job on campus and most times can work to your availability schedule. There should be a box on the FAFSA form for it.

Fifth, good grades and SAT/ACT test scores do pay in the form of merit scholarships. Individual colleges and the state government hands them out. As a result, it pays to study and work hard on schoolwork.

Finally, I recommend joining several free membership scholarship search websites, but the best I have located is Scholarship Experts since they have a very thorough and lengthy survey to complete compared to Fastweb. There are scholarships for a variety of things including ethnicity, clubs, hobbies, and even wearing duct tape to the high school prom. Most are updated on a regular basis. Most offer a customized search based on information entered onto a form on the website.

Good luck!

Answer 3

You can register but all schools have a deadline for which the bill must be paid. For me, I registered in May but the money is due in by Aug 25th, if you don't pay by then your classes will be dropped.