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That's great news! Most financial aid offices are well-prepared for these situations, especially since the maintenance affects students nationwide. Glad you got the extension you needed!
BE CAREFUL!!! My roommate finished her program 6 weeks early and the school reported it as a WITHDRAWAL instead of a completion!! She had to fight with them for MONTHS to get it fixed and almost had her transcript held!!! Make sure you get WRITTEN confirmation about how early completion works BEFORE you finish!!
When I was doing my online certification last year I was on track to finish like 8 weeks early but then my financial aid advisor told me that if I submitted my final project before the official end date they'd have to recalculate my aid. So I just waited and submitted everything on the official last day even though I was done early. Might be an option if you're worried about having to pay anything back.
This is actually a smart approach if your school treats early completion as a withdrawal. However, not all schools allow you to sit on completed work - some programs automatically mark you as complete when all requirements are fulfilled. Always check with your specific program's policies.
@OP - University of Michigan typically has a very reliable financial aid process, but they're also known to run out of certain institutional grant funds later in the season. Definitely contact them ASAP and express your concerns. If you're an in-state student, their aid tends to be more generous than for out-of-state. One option some families use: commit with the deposit to secure the spot, but continue to work with financial aid and be prepared to withdraw if the package makes attendance impossible. Yes, you might lose the deposit, but it protects your son's spot while you wait for the official numbers.
We are in-state, thankfully! That's a good strategy - paying the deposit as a kind of insurance while we wait for the numbers. Do colleges typically notify you immediately once your aid package is determined, or do they sometimes wait and send them all out at once?
@OP Most schools process aid packages as they receive FAFSA information and will notify you as soon as your package is determined. However, some schools do batch their notifications, especially for incoming freshmen. The best approach is to call Michigan's financial aid office directly and ask about their specific notification timeline. One more thing to consider: If your son's SAI (Student Aid Index, formerly EFC) is already available on studentaid.gov, you could share that number with Michigan's financial aid office. Sometimes they can provide a rough estimate based on that figure, even if they haven't processed your full package yet.
That's really helpful! I just checked and we don't have an SAI yet - still shows processing. This whole FAFSA delay has been so stressful. I'll definitely call Michigan tomorrow and see if they can give us some guidance. Thank you all for your advice!
btw if ur fixing tax stuff do u know which form they need? my daughters corrction was for the w2 vs tax return numbers not matching and we had to figure out which one they wanted us to use
UPDATE: I logged in with my parent FSA ID and was able to access the correction screen! It showed exactly what needed to be fixed - just a transposed number in our AGI. I corrected it and submitted the changes. The site said it would take 3-5 days to process, but we actually got a confirmation email the next day saying the corrections were accepted. Thanks everyone for your help!
Great to hear! That's a perfect example of how small errors can cause verification issues. Glad you were able to fix it quickly. Now your son's SAI calculation should be accurate which will give you the correct aid eligibility.
Yuki Yamamoto
Once you find out what the issue is, please come back and update us! It might help others who run into the same problem. The new FAFSA has so many quirks that we're all learning about in real-time.
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Ethan Brown
•I definitely will! I've already learned so much from everyone's responses here. I'm calling them first thing tomorrow morning.
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Zoe Dimitriou
my daughters school did this and turns out they just needed her to fill out an additional form for their specific financial aid program. had nothing to do with fafsa being wrong
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Ethan Brown
•That would be the best case scenario! Fingers crossed it's something that simple. Thanks for sharing your experience.
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