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my son got his award letters about 3-4 weeks after the SAI came out. each school is different tho. state schools were faster than private ones in our experience
Thanks everyone for the helpful responses! I'm going to check each school's applicant portal first, then call the financial aid offices to confirm they received everything. Better safe than sorry, especially with those May 1st deposit deadlines approaching. I appreciate all the advice - this process is so confusing for first-timers!
Financial aid officer here. This is a known issue with the 2025-2026 FAFSA. When the student and parent sections are completed more than 72 hours apart, the system sometimes fails to properly link the signatures. Here's what to do: 1. Have your daughter log in to her studentaid.gov account 2. Go to the FAFSA application and navigate to the Sign & Submit section 3. She'll need to re-sign (the information is all still there) 4. Then you should receive a new confirmation email within 24-48 hours 5. The SAI calculation typically follows 3-5 business days after that If you continue having issues, you can request a signature override, but you'll need to speak directly with an FSA agent for that. Be aware that call volumes are extremely high right now.
Thank you so much for these specific steps! We'll try this tonight. Do you know if this will delay her application processing significantly? Her school priority deadline is coming up in 3 weeks.
Most schools are aware of the FAFSA issues this year and are being flexible with those priority deadlines. However, I would recommend having your daughter contact her school's financial aid office directly to notify them of the issue. They can often place a note in her file that the FAFSA is in process but experiencing technical delays. This way her application won't be penalized for missing the deadline if processing takes longer than expected.
Update: Fixed our issue! We had my daughter log back in, and there was indeed a yellow warning icon on her dashboard about incomplete signature. She had to go through the FSA ID verification again (using her driver's license) and then re-sign. The system immediately sent a new confirmation email saying both signatures were received! Now we're waiting for the SAI calculation. Thanks everyone for your help!
have u tried a different time of day? sounds weird but sometimes the website is just overloaded when everybodys on it. i did mine at like 6am and had zero issues lol
Update on this issue: The Department of Education just released a statement acknowledging the birthday field bug affecting some users. They recommend trying these steps: 1. Clear your browser cache completely (not just cookies) 2. Use the FAFSA mobile app instead of the website 3. If using the website, try Microsoft Edge browser specifically 4. Ensure your FSA ID was created more than 3 days ago (there's a verification period) They're working on a fix that should be deployed within the next week. If you need this resolved immediately for financial aid deadlines, calling is unfortunately your best option.
Update on this issue: The Department of Education acknowledged a specific bug affecting multiple dependent applications in the 2025-2026 FAFSA. They recommend these steps specifically for twin applications: 1. Complete the applications at least 24 hours apart 2. Use different browsers for each application 3. Ensure both students AND the parent have separate email addresses linked to their FSA IDs 4. After submitting both applications, the parent should log into studentaid.gov separately and verify the tax permissions for each student If you still experience the error after trying these steps, a direct call to FSA is unfortunately necessary. The issue is on their end.
Did you get this fixed? I'm about to submit FAFSA forms for my twins next week and want to avoid the same problem!
Yes! We finally fixed it. The issue was that we had used the same parent email for both FSA IDs. We changed one of them to a different email address, waited 48 hours, then reauthorized the tax information for both students. That finally worked! Also make sure to submit their applications at least a day apart - that seems to help prevent the system from getting confused.
Yuki Watanabe
anybody know if this effects your SAI calculation?? my brothers fafsa had the same issue and his SAI was way higher than expected when it finally went through. not sure if its related but just a warning.
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Aisha Mohammed
•This issue with the IRS data transfer doesn't directly affect the SAI calculation. The SAI (Student Aid Index) is calculated based on the data itself, not how it was entered. If your brother's SAI was higher than expected, it's more likely due to how income and assets were reported, not the transfer delay. Common reasons for unexpectedly high SAI include: - Reportable assets that weren't excluded (some retirement accounts should be excluded) - Multiple family members in college not being properly reported - Income from tax-exempt interest not being correctly handled - Untaxed income being counted that wasn't anticipated If you believe there's an error, your brother can contact his school's financial aid office to request a professional judgment review.
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Zara Khan
UPDATE: The IRS data finally came through today! Interestingly, as soon as it did, I got a completely different notification saying "New information has been added to your FAFSA" instead of the incomplete reminders. We were able to finish the rest of the application in about 20 minutes. For anyone else facing this issue - it took exactly 6 business days for the IRS data to transfer. Thanks everyone for your help and suggestions!
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Mateo Gonzalez
•That's great news! Glad it worked out. Now make sure to check her Student Aid Index (SAI) once it's calculated (usually 3-5 days after submission) and have her watch for communications from her schools about any additional information they might need. Some schools also require the CSS Profile in addition to FAFSA, so double-check her school's financial aid websites for all requirements.
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