One more thing - I recommend having your daughter check her SAI (Student Aid Index) calculation on her FAFSA account. If there's a flag on the citizenship verification, you might see an alert there. And make sure to check both her student.aid.gov account AND her school portal, as sometimes the messages don't sync properly between systems.

just my 2 cents but the birth certificate + photo ID combo worked for my citizenship verification last fall. took like 3 days to process vs the weeks they said a passport would take

Speaking as someone who works in higher education IT systems, I can explain what's actually happening on the technical side: When you resubmit without changes, the system generates what's called a "duplicate ISIR" (Institutional Student Information Record). The schools' financial aid management systems can detect this. Most modern systems automatically flag identical resubmissions and don't treat them as new applications requiring full review. The delay is generally just the federal processing time (typically 3-7 days) for the data to be transmitted back to schools. Schools that use automated systems will simply verify the data matches and continue processing. Some smaller schools with manual processes might take a few extra days. The most important factor is timing in relation to the school's internal aid packaging timeline. If they're actively packaging aid right now, a brief delay could potentially impact priority consideration. That's why it's good advice to contact financial aid offices directly.

One more thing to add - when this happened to us, I panicked and made it worse by calling schools everyday asking about it. My son was embarrassed and it actually caused more confusion. The best approach is one calm email to financial aid offices explaining the situation, then be patient. Eventually everything worked out fine and he got the same aid package he would have anyway.

have u tried logging in with ur kids info instead of urs? my nephew had this problem and for some reason when HE logged in (not his mom) he could edit everything fine even tho it was submitted. worth a try maybe?

UPDATE: So I tried multiple things based on everyone's suggestions. The midnight trick didn't work, neither did using my phone. HOWEVER - having my son log in with his own account DID show different options! He could see a button for "Correct or Update FAFSA" that wasn't visible in my parent view. Still got an error when trying to save changes though. I ended up using Claimyr like someone suggested, and got through to an agent in about 20 minutes instead of waiting for hours. The agent confirmed this is a known issue affecting "thousands of applications" and put in an override request. They said we should be able to edit the FAFSA in 2-3 business days. I've also emailed all the financial aid offices to let them know what's happening. Thank you everyone for all the help! This has been so stressful.

DOUBLE CHECK with your school's financial aid office! Each school has their own policies on how outside scholarships impact your aid package. Some schools will reduce loans first (good), others reduce grants first (bad). My daughter's school had a "displacement policy" that basically penalized her for getting outside scholarships by reducing institutional grants dollar-for-dollar. Total scam!

To summarize the correct information: 1. Scholarship money used for room & board is counted as the STUDENT'S income on the FAFSA, not the parents' income 2. The no-asset test (175% of poverty level) only looks at PARENT income, not student income 3. Student income is assessed separately through the Student Aid Index formula, where they get the income protection allowance (~$9,410) 4. Since this is for the 2024-25 academic year, this scholarship income would affect your 2026-27 FAFSA, not your 2025-26 FAFSA So you can focus on managing your own income/401k contributions without worrying about how your daughter's scholarship might push you over the asset reporting threshold - it won't.

not to go off topic but is anyone else having issues with the new FAFSA interface?? i cant figure out how to even START the application for my kids. the old version was way better imo

has anyone had experience with the dependency override for siblings raising siblings? my friend is basically raising her 3 younger siblings but the parents are technically still around just not involved at all. wondering if there's a way for the younger siblings to apply as independent without parent info?