The One Thing You Need To Know About Financial Aid
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
The One Thing You Need To Know About Financial Aid
If you have filled out the FAFSA form, you might think you are done.
You are in for a surprise!
The FAFSA only covers federal student aid and not the financial aid from colleges and universities themselves.
About 400 colleges, organizations and private high schools offer scholarships and grants. They want more details about your finances to determine how much aid they’re willing to give you. If you aren’t aware of this extra step when applying for financial aid, you may not get all that you’re eligible for and may regret it later when it is too late.
These institutions use the CSS PROFILE administered by the College Board, the creators of the SAT.
It isn’t free. On top of each college application fee, you’ll need to add $25.00 for the initial filing (which includes sending the PROFILE to one college), then $16.00 to send it to each additional college.
It takes 45 minutes to two hours to complete the PROFILE. Some of the items you need to fill the form are:
federal tax returns
W2 forms
current bank statements
savings stocks, bonds, trust
Some of the institutions that use CSS PROFILE are:
- Brown University
- Stanford University
- Harvard
- Yale
- California institute of technology
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Columbia
- Cornell
- Duke
- Dartmouth College
- Drexel
- Univ of Chicago
- Univ of Southern California
- Georgia Institute of Technology
- Harvey Mudd College
- Univ of Notre Dame
- Univ of Pennsylvania
- Johns Hopkins University
- Massachusetts Inst of Tech
- Rice University
Full list is at this link.
“Did you know that $14K Financial aid dollars received by the average undergrad last year”
FAQ:
When do I file the PROFILE? You may file the PROFILE as early as Oct. 1, 2016. However, you should file no later than two weeks before the EARLIEST priority filing date specified by your colleges or programs.
How much the PROFILE cost? The fee for the initial application and one college or program report is $25. Additional reports are $16.
Questions? Contact customer support at 844-202-0524 or email help@cssprofile.org.
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