my sisters at kennesaw!!! they totaly do this every year, its super annoying. the loans will show up eventually but if ur really worried u can go to the financial aid office in person, they actually super helpful there!!!!

Don't stress too much about this! As someone who went through the exact same thing with my son at a Georgia school, this is totally normal timing. Most Georgia universities process aid in waves - state aid first (like your daughter's HOPE), then institutional scholarships, and federal aid comes last. Since you mentioned her acceptance was a bit late, that could definitely explain the delay. Federal loans almost always show up eventually, especially since your FAFSA was filed properly in January. If you're still not seeing anything by mid-July, that's when I'd start making calls. But honestly, with an August payment deadline, you've got plenty of time for everything to process normally.

UPDATE: Problem solved! Dad checked and he had accidentally started the process from his 2024-2025 dashboard. He sent a new invitation from the correct 2025-2026 application, and now I can see and access the right form. Thanks everyone for your help!

So glad to see this got resolved! This seems to be a really common issue this year. For anyone else running into this problem, the key takeaway is to make sure the parent starts from the correct year's application when sending the invitation. The FAFSA system doesn't seem to give clear error messages when there's a year mismatch, so it's easy to get stuck in the wrong application cycle. Definitely worth double-checking before spending hours troubleshooting!

one thing nobody mentioned! check if ur in verification!! if ur selected for verification that takes FOREEVERRR to process and u have to send in extra documents. my roomate got selected last year and it took like 2 extra months to get her aid package!! the late submission might make them pick u for verification so be prepared!

Hey Raul! I went through something super similar at Texas A&M last year - thought I had submitted my FAFSA but it was just saved as a draft for MONTHS. The panic is real, but you're going to be okay! Since you're meeting with UT Austin tomorrow, here's what helped me: bring a printed timeline showing when you started the application (those November screenshots you mentioned are GOLD), and emphasize that this was a genuine technical confusion, not procrastination. UT's financial aid office is actually pretty compassionate about these situations. Even though you missed the January 15th priority deadline, federal Pell Grant and loan eligibility doesn't have the same hard cutoffs. And UT often has institutional emergency grants for exactly these kinds of situations - definitely ask about those! One heads up: if your EFC/SAI comes back different than expected, double-check all your tax info entries. When I was rushing to resubmit, I made some data entry errors that caused delays later. You've got this - and honestly, dealing with this now in March is way better than discovering it in August when school starts!

Update: I called the FSA office this morning (waited 45 minutes but finally got through). They added a note to my profile about the identity theft situation and gave me some specific instructions for when we file the FAFSA. They also suggested we request an extension from any schools with early financial aid deadlines just in case there are processing delays. Thank you all for your helpful advice!

So glad you were able to get through to FSA and get that note added to your profile! That was definitely the right first step. One thing I'd also recommend - keep detailed records of every phone call, reference number, and person you speak with throughout this process. With identity theft situations, sometimes information doesn't get passed along properly between different departments or agents. Having your own paper trail can save you from having to re-explain your situation multiple times. Also, if your son's FAFSA does get selected for verification (which sounds likely), respond to any requests immediately - even a few days delay can push you to the back of the processing queue. Wishing you and your son the best of luck with this whole process!

One more thing to watch for - after your SAI is calculated, your daughter's FAFSA information is sent to the schools listed on her application. Each school then calculates its own financial aid package based on the SAI and their institutional formula. So even after you get the SAI, there's still a waiting period before you hear from individual schools about actual aid offers. Just wanted to manage expectations about the overall timeline.

As someone new to this whole FAFSA process, I'm finding this thread incredibly helpful! My son is a junior and we haven't started yet, but seeing all these processing delays is making me nervous about timing. Should we plan to submit earlier than the typical deadlines to account for these longer processing times? Also, I'm confused about the difference between the SAR and SAI that people are mentioning - are these two separate documents or is the SAI just part of the SAR? Thanks for sharing your experiences, everyone!