October 1st

Holy cow!  Can you believe it is October 1st?!?  This is a key date for seniors for many reasons...

The FAFSA opens today (October 1st).  The government and colleges have moved FAFSA's opening date and due dates up in order to give students and families more time to be able to have their financial aid offers and consider the implications when making the decision about which college will be the best fit financially.  The FAFSA for current high school seniors will be based upon the 2021 tax returns.  You can access the FAFSA here:  https://studentaid.gov/h/apply-for-aid/fafsa

When students and parents are completing the FAFSA, you will each need to have an FSAID number.  This number will allow you to electronically sign your FAFSA and in the future it would let you sign promissory notes as well as complete future FAFSA's.

The student and parent will each create their own separate numbers.  You cannot use the same e-mail addresses for the creation of the numbers so if you don't have an e-mail address and have been using your parents e-mail in the past then this is the ideal time to create your own e-mail account.

You will make your own challenge questions to help you access your number if you forget it in the future so it is important to write down those challenge questions and answers to make sure you will remember it down the road.  I recommend that students and parents make a folder related to FAFSA where you store all of this information so that you will always have it when you might need it.

If you forget to create an FSAID number prior to completing your FAFSA, it will still have a link for you to be able to go back and create one, but ideally you should create it ahead of time.

Here is a link to create your FSAID numbers:  https://studentaid.gov/fsa-id/create-account/launch

To help you with the college financial aid process we will host a Financial Aid Meeting on Thursday, October 6th at 7pm in the Auditorium.  We are fortunate to welcome Faith Phillips, a financial aid director for OSU Newark and COTC, as our guest presenter.  This is just an evening targeting senior students and parents because the FAFSA will be changing again next year so it is NOT a night that younger families would want to attend.

Why else is October 1st important?  We are now in the 1 month countdown to the November 1st early application deadline for so many colleges.  So you have a month to finalize your applications.  Additionally, remember, you should be asking for any recommendation letters a month in advance which means TODAY!  So, if you haven't already, please be sure to ask your teacher (or me) about writing a recommendation letter for you on Monday!