Just to follow up on your question about whether this could happen again - the Department of Education has indicated that most recalculations should be completed by early May, but there may be additional targeted corrections for specific scenarios through June. If your twins' applications were recalculated once, it's possible but less likely they'll be adjusted again. To stay informed, I recommend: 1. Checking your StudentAid.gov account weekly 2. Reading all emails from Federal Student Aid carefully 3. Staying in contact with the financial aid offices at your twins' chosen schools Schools are being advised on how to handle these recalculations, and many are being flexible with financial aid deadlines as a result.

This whole situation is honestly a nightmare for families trying to make college decisions! I'm dealing with something similar - my daughter's FAFSA has been a rollercoaster. It was initially processed in March, then showed "pending" for weeks, then suddenly got reprocessed with a completely different SAI last week. No communication from FSA about what was happening during those weeks of uncertainty. What's really frustrating is that colleges are asking for deposit decisions while our financial aid picture keeps changing. I've had to reach out to three different schools to explain the FAFSA chaos and ask for deadline extensions. Thankfully most have been understanding, but it shouldn't be this stressful! At least your twins' SAI went down - that's a silver lining in all this confusion. I'd definitely recommend screenshotting everything and keeping records of all the changes, just in case you need to reference them later with the schools.

I went through this exact same nightmare in January! After weeks of frustration, what finally worked for me was discovering that the error was caused by a tiny discrepancy in how I reported my household size versus the number of people I claimed would be in college. Here's what I'd recommend trying immediately: 1. **Log into your FSA account and look for any orange warning triangles** - sometimes there are error messages buried in sections that aren't obvious 2. **Check the "household size" vs "number in college" numbers** - these have to align perfectly with your tax filing status 3. **Verify your state of legal residence matches your tax return state** - this was actually my issue! The good news is once you identify and fix the specific problem, the SAI usually calculates within 24-48 hours. Given your tight deadline, I'd also suggest having your son email the scholarship committee TODAY explaining the situation and asking for a brief extension - most are being very understanding about FAFSA delays this year. Don't give up! The error means there's something specific that can be fixed, it's just a matter of finding what's triggering it.

I'm so sorry you're dealing with this stress right before a scholarship deadline! I just went through something similar with my son's FAFSA. The "SAI cannot be calculated" error drove me absolutely crazy for weeks. What finally resolved it for us was realizing we had made an error in the "parents' marital status" section. Even though we're married and file jointly, we had accidentally selected "unmarried and both parents living together" during one of our many correction attempts. This tiny mistake cascaded into calculation errors throughout the rest of the form. Here's my advice with your 5-day deadline: 1. **Print out your FAFSA and go through it line by line with your tax return** - look for ANY discrepancies, no matter how small 2. **Pay special attention to marital status, household size, and dependency questions** - these drive all the other calculations 3. **Contact the scholarship committee immediately** - explain the FAFSA processing issues and ask if they can accept the application with a pending SAI notation Also, if you submitted corrections recently, sometimes it takes 3-5 business days for the SAI to recalculate even after you fix the underlying issue. The timing might be tight, but don't lose hope! Good luck - I'm rooting for you and your son to get this resolved! 🤞

Update: I tried again on my laptop with Chrome and selected "not required to file" instead of "will file" - and the untaxed income section appeared! I was able to report my SSDI benefits under the Social Security benefits section. The application is now complete and it gave me my SAI calculation. Thanks everyone for your help! Special thanks to those who pointed out the "not required to file" option - that was exactly what I needed to fix!

So glad you got this resolved! This thread is super helpful for anyone else dealing with disability income on the FAFSA. I've been putting off starting mine because I wasn't sure how to handle my SSI benefits, but now I know to look for the "not required to file" option and make sure I'm using a desktop browser. Thanks to everyone who shared their experiences - it's so much less intimidating when you know what to expect!

Quick update on processing times: The Department of Education recently announced they're working through a backlog of applications, with priority given to those submitted earliest. Applications from late November should be fully processed by mid-January at the latest. Here's what you can do while waiting: 1. Verify your daughter's studentaid.gov account has her current contact information 2. Check that the schools listed on her FAFSA match where she's actually applying 3. Start preparing any supplemental financial aid documents that schools might require (CSS Profile, institutional forms, etc.) 4. If any schools have specific financial aid deadlines approaching, contact them directly to explain the FAFSA processing delay Most schools understand the FAFSA delays this year and have contingency plans in place. They won't penalize students for delays outside their control.

I'm in a similar situation! My son submitted his FAFSA on 11/30 and we're still waiting too. It's so stressful watching other families get their financial aid packages while we're still in limbo. Reading through these responses is really helpful though - sounds like we should expect to hear something in the next week or two based on the 3-4 week timeline everyone's mentioning. I had no idea about checking the school portals separately, so thank you for that tip! Going to have him log into all of them today.

I spoke with my daughter's financial aid counselor yesterday, and she gave me some interesting insight. According to her, the Department of Education had an internal analysis showing how the formula changes would affect different demographic groups. They knew the elimination of the sibling discount would hit middle-income families hard, but they believed the increased income protection allowance would offset it. Clearly, that offset isn't happening for many families. She also mentioned that they're seeing unprecedented numbers of appeals this year specifically citing the formula change impacts. Her advice was to be extremely specific in appeals - don't just say "the new formula hurt us" but instead say "we have multiple students in college, which the new formula doesn't account for, creating an additional financial burden of $X per year compared to last year's methodology.

I'm new to this whole FAFSA process (my oldest is a high school senior), but reading through all these comments is absolutely terrifying! I've been using online EFC calculators for the past year to estimate what we'd need to pay, and now I'm realizing those are all based on the OLD formula? Can someone help me understand - if I'm a single parent with an income of about $75k and will have just one child in college next year, am I likely to see a big difference between what the old calculators predicted and what the new SAI will be? Or are the major impacts mostly hitting families with multiple kids in college simultaneously? I'm trying to figure out if I need to completely redo my college savings expectations or if families like mine might not see dramatic changes. This whole thread has me second-guessing everything I thought I knew about financial aid!