FAFSA submitted weeks ago but no SAI score - where to find it?

There are some significant processing delays right now with the 2025-2026 FAFSA. The 3-5 day timeline was accurate in previous years, but this cycle has been taking anywhere from 2-4 weeks for initial processing. Your SAI will appear on your daughter's studentaid.gov dashboard once processed - no separate email is typically sent. She should log in and check the dashboard, then click on 'View Student Aid Index (SAI)' under the FAFSA section. If it's been more than 4 weeks, I'd recommend reaching out to Federal Student Aid.

We're in the same boat! Submitted my son's FAFSA 3.5 weeks ago and still no SAI. The waiting is killing me because we need to make decisions based on aid packages. This whole process is SO stressful.

This is a SYSTEMATIC problem with this year's FAFSA cycle!! I work in a college financial aid office and we're seeing processing times averaging 3-4 weeks, sometimes longer if there are verification issues. The system is completely overwhelmed. Also important to note - your daughter needs to check HER account, not a parent account. The SAI only appears in the student's dashboard. And make sure you're looking at the right aid year - there's a dropdown menu to select 2025-2026.

just wanted to say my daughters SAI took 6 weeks to show up last week. system is broken this year

Have you tried calling FSA directly? I was in a similar situation last month with my application. I spent days trying to get through their main number with no success (it's constantly busy or you get disconnected). I finally used a service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) to help me reach an agent. They have a demo video here: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ that shows how it works. Got connected to an FSA agent within 15 minutes who could actually look at my application and tell me exactly what was happening. In my case, there was a data mismatch they needed to fix manually. Saved me weeks of waiting and uncertainty.

Quick question - when you say you "completed" the FAFSA, did you just submit it or did you get to the confirmation page with the confirmation number? My son thought he completed his but actually hadn't signed it electronically so it was just sitting there unsubmitted for weeks! Might be worth checking that your daughter actually got a confirmation number and not just to a submission page.

Has ur daughter checked her spam folder?? sometimes the emails from studentaid.gov get filtered there. My daughter's SAI email went to spam and we almost missed it! Also, did u use the IRS data retrieval tool or did u enter tax info manually? Manual entry takes wayyyy longer to process.

Just to clarify something important - you mentioned waiting for her SAI to "appear anywhere." The SAI isn't sent separately - it's part of the processed FAFSA. If you received the SAR (Student Aid Report), check that document as it should contain the SAI. It's usually on the first page in the upper right corner. If you can see the SAR but there's no SAI listed, that's a different issue that would require contacting FSA directly.

One more thing to watch for - after your SAI is calculated, your daughter's FAFSA information is sent to the schools listed on her application. Each school then calculates its own financial aid package based on the SAI and their institutional formula. So even after you get the SAI, there's still a waiting period before you hear from individual schools about actual aid offers. Just wanted to manage expectations about the overall timeline.

As someone new to this whole FAFSA process, I'm finding this thread incredibly helpful! My son is a junior and we haven't started yet, but seeing all these processing delays is making me nervous about timing. Should we plan to submit earlier than the typical deadlines to account for these longer processing times? Also, I'm confused about the difference between the SAR and SAI that people are mentioning - are these two separate documents or is the SAI just part of the SAR? Thanks for sharing your experiences, everyone!