Missing high school in FAFSA dropdown - can't continue application!

same thing happened with my sons school last year!! its so frustrating they dont update their lists. call the fafsa number but prepare to wait like 3 hrs lol

This is actually a common issue with newer or smaller schools. I work in college admissions and see this frequently. You have two options: 1. You can select the closest public high school in your district as a temporary placeholder to continue the application. This won't affect her SAI calculation or aid eligibility. After submitting, call FSA to update the record with the correct school. 2. Contact your school's counseling office and ask for their Federal School Code (if they have one). Sometimes schools exist in the system but under different naming conventions than you'd expect. If they don't have a code, go with option 1. Don't worry - your daughter won't lose eligibility because of this technical issue!

Ugh this system is so broken!!! This happens EVERY YEAR with smaller schools and they STILL haven't fixed it! My daughter couldn't find her performing arts magnet school last year and we ended up having to list some random school then spent 2 MONTHS trying to get it corrected after submission. The whole thing is ridiculous - they should just have a manual entry option but NOOOOO that would be too LOGICAL for the government!!! 🤬

I've helped dozens of families with this exact issue. The suggestion to use a placeholder school will work, but you should know that calling FSA to fix it afterward can be extremely difficult due to high call volumes (3+ hour waits are common). If you want to avoid the long wait, I recommend using Claimyr (claimyr.com). It's a service that navigates the phone system for you and calls you back when an agent is ready. Saved me hours when helping students with FAFSA issues last cycle. They have a video demo you can check out: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ Alternatively, you can visit your local college's financial aid office - they often have direct lines to FSA and can help facilitate corrections.

my cousin works at fafsa call center says they get this question all day everyday lol just put any school nearby and fix it later its not a big deal

I just went through this last week! Our solution was to contact the high school administration directly. They told us they'd recently changed their official name with the Department of Education but it hadn't updated in all systems yet. The counselor gave us the exact name to search for (which was different than what we were trying) and we found it! Ask your daughter's school if they might be listed under a different name variation - worth checking before going through all the hassle of corrections later.

Am I the only one who thinks its weird that they need high school info anyway??? Like what does that have to do with college financial aid?? My community college didnt even care what high school I went to when I applied there so why does fafsa need to know? Just another way they make this process complicated for no reason imo

wait but what about the Federal School Code thing the other person mentioned? does ur charter school actually have one of those? might be worth checking the school's website too sometimes they have fafsa info on there

This is yet ANOTHER example of how the FAFSA "simplification" is actually making things MORE complicated! My daughter couldn't find her high school either, so we just picked a random one from the list. Then we got selected for verification, and I'm convinced it was because of the high school mismatch. The whole system is designed to make us fail.

Quick update - I talked to my daughter's financial aid office today about a different issue and mentioned this thread. They said charter schools sometimes have to register separately with FSA to be included in the high school dropdown. If the school is newer than 2-3 years, they might not be in the system yet. They said using a nearby public school as a placeholder is totally fine and won't affect aid amounts AT ALL.

I'm a high school counselor and see this issue constantly with newer charter schools and alternative programs. Here's what I tell families: First, try searching for your school using just the city name or district - sometimes schools are listed under umbrella organizations. Second, if you absolutely can't find it, go ahead and select any high school in your area as a placeholder. The key thing is to DOCUMENT what you did - take a screenshot of the dropdown showing your school isn't there, and write down exactly which placeholder school you selected. This will make it much easier when you call FSA later to correct it. Also, contact your school's main office and ask them to reach out to FSA directly to get added to the database - this helps future students avoid the same problem!