am i the only one whos parents refused to provide their info for fafsa?? my dad said its "invasive" and wont give me his tax info so now i cant even apply for financial aid. anyone know if u can do fafsa without parent info somehow??

Thank you all SO MUCH for all this advice! I think I understand the process now: 1. First, my mom and I both need to create FSA IDs 2. Gather all our financial documents 3. Set aside several hours when we're both available 4. Complete the form on studentaid.gov 5. Double-check all numbers match exactly with our tax forms 6. Submit well before my school's deadline (I'll verify what that actually is) I'm still nervous but feel way more prepared now. Will let you all know how it goes! 🙏

This is EXCELLENT news! I'm so glad she was persistent and asked to speak with someone more senior. That often makes all the difference. The documentation she gathered sounds perfect - especially the therapist letter. Looking forward to hearing the final outcome!

Thank you! She said she felt so much more confident going in with all the specific advice from this thread. The Assistant Director even commented that she was impressed with how prepared she was with her documentation. Fingers crossed!!

I had 2 wait for my paper FAFSA 2 process last yr and it was AWFUL!!!! ended up having 2 choose a school with NO idea what aid i would get. TOTAL NIGHTMARE!!!!! I wish id known 2 bug the financial aid offices more like everyone here is saying. tell ur cousin 2 call EVERY DAY until they help her!!!!!

One clarification on my earlier advice: when requesting the professional judgment review, your cousin should specifically mention "special circumstances due to parent citizenship status and FAFSA processing delays" - this terminology will signal to the financial aid office exactly what kind of review she needs. Also, having her bring the following to each financial aid office will help tremendously: 1. Photocopy of the completed paper FAFSA 2. Proof of mailing (receipt if available) 3. Parents' tax returns with SSNs redacted 4. Her own tax information if she worked 5. A written timeline of her attempts to submit electronically and subsequent paper submission This documentation package will give aid administrators what they need to create a provisional aid package while waiting for official processing.

One more thing to try - have your mom create the FSA ID using her phone number for verification instead of email. The text message verification tends to be more reliable. Also, since the deadline is coming up, remember you can submit an incomplete FAFSA to meet the deadline, then go back and update it once your mom's account is working. That way you don't miss any priority deadlines while sorting this out.

Just wanted to follow up - did you get this resolved? I ended up having to call FSA for a similar issue and they were able to manually verify my mom's email. Took about 10 minutes once I actually got an agent.

Just wanted to follow up and mention that checking your status obsessively won't make it process any faster. The system doesn't work that way. Once you submit, it enters a processing queue and checking the status doesn't move you up in line. One thing that might be useful is to verify that your daughter's Student Aid Account is properly linked to your Parent FAFSA Account. Sometimes processing delays happen when the system has trouble matching the accounts. If you log into studentaid.gov, go to the account settings and check if the parent-student link shows as verified. If it shows pending or has any warnings, that could explain the delay.

Sorry for jumping in late, but I wanted to ask - did you use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool when filling out the income section? Applications that use the DRT tend to process faster because the income data is pre-verified. If you manually entered tax info, that could be causing the delay as they have to verify everything manually.