FAFSA submission confirmed but no SAI after 8 days - normal waiting time?

Same boat here!!! Submitted my FAFSA TWO WEEKS ago and still stuck on processing. Called the Federal Student Aid number three times and couldn't get through to anyone - just the automated system telling me to "check back later" 🙄 This new system is a disaster honestly.

There are definitely longer processing times this cycle. The new FAFSA system is actually calculating SAI scores in batches rather than immediately. 7-10 business days is becoming more standard, though officially they still say 1-3 days. As long as you received the submission confirmation email, your application is in their system. Keep checking your studentaid.gov account daily and also check your email spam folder regularly in case the results notification gets filtered.

lol everyone panicing... this happens EVERY year with fafsa... just wait it out. my sons took 12 days last year and everything was fine. they will email you when its ready

Just to add some clarity - the new FAFSA system this year has completely different processing procedures than previous years. The Student Aid Index calculation is more complex now and involves additional verification steps on the backend. If you're worried about meeting school deadlines, you can contact your daughter's financial aid office directly. Most schools understand the FAFSA delays this cycle and are being flexible with their internal deadlines as long as you can prove you submitted on time (your confirmation email is that proof). If it goes beyond 14 business days, then you should definitely try contacting Federal Student Aid directly.

I had this EXACT problem last month! I tried calling FSA for days and kept getting disconnected or waiting for hours. Finally used Claimyr (claimyr.com) to get through to an actual human at Federal Student Aid. They have this service where they wait on hold for you and then call you when a real person is on the line. Saved me so much frustration! You can see how it works in their video demo: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ Turns out my application was stuck because my daughter's Social Security number had a typo. The agent fixed it right away and we got our SAI calculation two days later.

I think theres a lot of missinformation here. The REAL truth is that FAFSA is totally backlogged because of the new system rollout. My daughter submitted in DECEMBER and we just got the SAI last week!!! Some applications get processed faster than others and no one knows why. Its like playing the lottery. My advice - if your daughter has high-priority schools, call those financial aid offices directly and explain the situation. Many schools are now working with students who have FAFSA delays. Some will even accept screenshots of your submission confirmation as proof you applied on time.

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.