FAFSA school selection timeout issue - save each school individually!
Just finished helping my daughter submit her FAFSA for 2025-2026 and learned a painful lesson I wanted to share! We almost lost ALL our school selections because we didn't realize you need to click 'save' after EACH school you add. We tried selecting all 12 schools at once and the system timed out on us without warning 😫 When we logged back in, nothing had saved! Fortunately we caught this before final submission. Had to re-enter each school individually (clicking save each time) which added about 30 extra minutes to what should have been a smooth process. Otherwise, the submission went fine - took about 75 minutes total including the school selection drama. The new SAI system seems simpler than the old EFC calculation, but that school selection interface needs serious work. For anyone submitting soon: SAVE AFTER EACH SCHOOL! Don't make our mistake!
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Lola Perez
OMG SAME THING HAPPENED TO US!! Lost 9 schools and had to redo everything. Why don't they make this clearer on the site??
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Ethan Scott
•Right?? You'd think there would be a big warning or something. At least we're not alone in this!
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Nathaniel Stewart
Thank you for sharing this! The school selection page is definitely one of the trickier parts of the new FAFSA. A few other tips for people: 1. The system times out after 15 minutes of inactivity 2. Each school selection needs individual saving (as you discovered) 3. You can add up to 20 schools initially 4. If you need more than 20, you'll need to edit your FAFSA later to add/remove schools 5. Make sure colleges receive your FAFSA by checking your SAI report confirmation The 2025-2026 FAFSA has improved in many ways with the simplified aid index calculation, but these technical issues are definitely frustrating!
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Riya Sharma
•These are great tips. I was wondering about the 20 school limit. Do you know how long it takes after submitting before we can edit to add more schools? My twins are applying to 25+ each.
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Santiago Diaz
This is EXACTLY why the entire FAFSA system is broken. They spend millions "upgrading" it and can't even get basic UX design right? People are losing HOURS of work because FAFSA can't program a simple auto-save function or timeout warning. And don't get me started on the ridiculous contributor section - my ex-husband couldn't access his part for THREE WEEKS because of their "technical issues." This whole system is designed to PREVENT people from getting financial aid, not help them. Change my mind.
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Millie Long
•While I understand your frustration, the new FAFSA actually does make it easier for many families to qualify for aid with the higher income protection allowances in the SAI formula. The technical issues are definitely inexcusable though - especially with how much time they had to prepare this rollout.
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KaiEsmeralda
Are we supposed to include community colleges in the school selection too? I have my main 4-year schools but wasn't sure about adding the backup 2-year options... does adding more schools hurt your chances?
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Nathaniel Stewart
•Yes, you should definitely include ANY school you might attend, including community colleges. Adding more schools does NOT affect your aid eligibility. The schools can't see what other schools you've added, so there's no disadvantage to listing all your options.
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Debra Bai
Ugh I had this same problem last week trying to help my nephew with his application. We lost all 14 schools! What worked for us was having the school codes ready in a separate document so we could quickly copy-paste them back in. Saved a lot of time when we had to re-enter everything.
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Ethan Scott
•That's actually brilliant! I wish we'd thought of that. We were scrambling to find all the school codes again. Will definitely keep a separate list next time!
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Riya Sharma
After 3 frustrating days trying to reach someone at Federal Student Aid about my daughter's school selection issues, I finally used Claimyr (claimyr.com) to get through to an actual human. Saved me hours of hold time and got our problem fixed in one call. They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ Not sure why FSA makes it so impossible to reach them directly!
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Lola Perez
•wait does this actually work? i've been on hold with fafsa like 6 times this week and keep getting disconnected ðŸ˜
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Gabriel Freeman
congrats on finishing! still trying to figure out how to handle my dad's part... he lives in another state and isn't tech savvy at all 🙃
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Millie Long
•If your dad struggles with technology, you might want to schedule a time to do a video call with him where you can walk him through his contributor section step by step. He'll need his FSA ID and tax information ready. Another option is to see if your school's financial aid office offers FAFSA completion assistance - many do, even for parents.
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Santiago Diaz
Anyone else think it's RIDICULOUS they make us enter schools one at a time when they KNOW most students apply to multiple colleges? Just another way they make this process needlessly difficult. My son applied to 22 schools and we had to sit there clicking save 22 times. In 2025!!
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Debra Bai
•My daughter is applying to 16 and I thought THAT was a lot! 22 schools? That's impressive. Did you have any issues with the 20 school limit? We're trying to figure out if we need to remove some initially and then add them back later.
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Ethan Scott
Thank you all for the helpful responses! I'm glad to know we weren't the only ones with this issue. I've created a spreadsheet with all my daughter's school codes now in case we need to make changes later. I really appreciate all the tips - especially about the 20 school limit and how to reach the FSA if we run into problems!
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