FAFSA signature order confusion - does student sign before parent or after?
I'm sitting here with my daughter about to submit her 2025-2026 FAFSA application but we're totally stuck on the signature page. Who's supposed to sign first? I read some horror story about a parent who signed and submitted first, then their kid couldn't get back in to complete their part. Should my daughter sign first, then me? Or am I overthinking this? The instructions aren't clear at all and I'm scared to mess this up after spending hours getting all the information together. Has anyone gone through this recently?
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Jade Santiago
The student should create the FAFSA and sign first, then the parent should sign second. The student basically "invites" the parent to contribute their information and sign. If the parent signs first, it can sometimes lock the student out. My son and I just completed his application last week and this order worked perfectly.
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Lauren Johnson
•Thank you! That makes sense. Did your son have to wait for you to sign before the application was officially submitted? Or was it submitted right after he signed?
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Caleb Stone
im actually not sure it matters anymore with the new FAFSA. me and my mom both signed ours at the same time basically and it went thru fine. but i think student is supposed to go first tecnically
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Daniel Price
•With the redesigned 2025-2026 FAFSA, it does still matter. The process is designed for the student to initiate and sign first, then invite contributors (usually parents) to provide their information and sign. If a parent tries to sign first, it can create technical issues with the submission flow.
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Olivia Evans
I went through this exact same panic attack last month! The correct order is: 1. Student creates FAFSA and signs first 2. Student adds parent as a contributor 3. Parent completes their section and signs second 4. FAFSA gets officially submitted DON'T have the parent sign first - it causes all kinds of technical problems. I learned this the hard way and we had to call FSA to reset everything.
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Lauren Johnson
•Omg thank you for the step-by-step! That's exactly what I needed. I was so confused by the contributor section too. We'll follow these steps right now.
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Sophia Bennett
This whole FAFSA redesign is a NIGHTMARE!! My son got locked out completely for THREE WEEKS because I accidentally signed first. The FSA website is terrible and their instructions contradict each other. Good luck!!
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Aiden Chen
•I had that exact same experience trying to sign my daughter's FAFSA! I ended up using Claimyr to get through to an FSA agent because I was on hold for 2+ hours otherwise. Their website (claimyr.com) let me schedule a callback and they got me through to a real person who fixed the signature issue. They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ - total lifesaver for getting this resolved quickly.
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Sophia Bennett
•Thx for the tip, going to try that now, been on hold forever
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Zoey Bianchi
Has anyone gotten their SAI score back super fast? My neice said she got hers in like 3 days which sounds impossible
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Daniel Price
•That's off-topic from the signature order question, but yes, some applicants are receiving their SAI calculations within 3-5 days if there are no verification flags on their application. However, most are still seeing 7-10 day processing times for the 2025-2026 FAFSA.
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Jade Santiago
To clarify my earlier response about signature order: 1. Student creates the FAFSA account 2. Student completes their portion of the application 3. Student adds parent as a contributor 4. Student signs their portion 5. Parent completes their information and signs 6. FAFSA is officially submitted after all required signatures The application isn't actually submitted until ALL required signatures are collected. The student signing first just establishes the proper workflow and prevents technical issues.
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Lauren Johnson
•This is SO helpful, thank you! We followed these steps exactly and just got confirmation that our FAFSA was successfully submitted. What a relief!
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Quinn Herbert
I'm so glad you got it figured out! I went through this same confusion with my twins last year. One thing I'd add for anyone else reading this - make sure you and your daughter are both using the same browser and have cleared your cache before starting. We had issues where the parent contributor invitation wasn't showing up properly because of browser conflicts. Also, keep your FSA ID login info handy because you'll need it multiple times during the process. The whole redesigned FAFSA is definitely more complicated than it used to be, but once you get the signature order right, it does work smoothly.
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Val Rossi
•Great advice about the browser issues! I'm new to this whole FAFSA process with my oldest starting college next year. The cache clearing tip is something I wouldn't have thought of. Quick question - when you say "same browser," do you mean the student and parent should both use Chrome, or Firefox, etc.? Or do you literally mean logging in from the same computer? We were planning to have my son fill out his part on his laptop and then I'd do my contributor section from my work computer later. Should we stick to one device to avoid complications?
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