I was having the same issue and couldn't get through to the financial aid office at all. After being on hold for hours multiple days, I finally used this service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) to get a callback from them. They have this video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ Turns out my school was missing my parents' tax verification form which is why my award letter hadn't been processed. They never even notified me! Got it resolved in 24 hours after finally talking to someone.

One more thing to consider - many schools prioritize processing in a specific order: 1. New incoming students (freshmen and transfers) 2. Continuing students with complete applications by priority deadlines 3. Late applications and incomplete files If you submitted after your school's priority deadline or if any information was flagged for verification, you might be further down in the processing queue. For your immediate payment deadline issue, ask about a financial aid deferment. Most schools will extend your payment deadline if they can see your FAFSA has been submitted and is in their system, even if they haven't finished processing your awards yet.

Update: The Department of Education just announced they're implementing emergency procedures to speed up FAFSA processing. Schools should start receiving backlogged data within the next week. They're also allowing schools to create aid packages with incomplete FAFSA data using professional judgment. Call your top choice schools and specifically ask if they're implementing these emergency procedures. Not all schools will, but many are trying to get aid packages out ASAP using these new flexibilities.

THIS IS WHY WE NEED ALTERNATIVES TO FAFSA! The CSS Profile schools seem to be handling things better. Government education bureaucracy at its finest - "simplify" the form and break the entire system. Meanwhile families are taking on extra debt or making uninformed decisions because of their incompetence.

So like is this gonna affect our SAI calculations? my daughter needs to get all her scholarships or we are screwed for paying for college. the mich state grant is a big part of our plan.

UPDATE: Success! Our counselor was able to help us complete the application using their school portal access. Apparently, they can submit directly through a different system that bypasses some of the glitches. She mentioned they've helped about 35 families with the same issue just this week! For anyone else stuck in Michigan FAFSA limbo - definitely contact your school counselor. They were super helpful and knew exactly which workarounds to use. Our application is finally processing, and she said we should see our SAI calculation within 3-5 business days. Such a relief!

Did your daughter get accepted to both schools? Sometimes colleges won't finalize aid packages for students who are on waitlists or whose admission status isn't fully resolved.

One important note - many private colleges will match or improve their offers if you show them the financial aid package from your state school. Once you get the state university's full offer, you can use that as leverage with the private college. Just be sure to get everything in writing and follow up persistently. Also, don't forget to check if your student qualifies for any departmental scholarships from their intended major. Sometimes these aren't automatically included in the initial aid package and require separate applications.

It should transmit to schools automatically based on the ones she listed on the FAFSA. We're still waiting for her financial aid packages though - that's another waiting game altogether!

Thanks! At this point I just want to get through the first waiting game before I start worrying about the second one 😅