how does Financial Aid Dpt and school process?

Alonso Crehan: For summer financial aid my daughter had to get a form from the financial aid office from her college to apply for it however she starts tomorrow so hopefully you are not too late for summer school. She got her financial aid award for fall the first week of April.For regular financial aid: After you file the FAFSA, within a week when you log in it will say it has been processed. Then you wait and within a week or two you will get an email saying that your SAR is ready, Student Aid Report and a link to see it and print it. That will be a recap of your FAFSA, some other stuff and your EFC, Estimated Family Contribution. They have a formula they use and based on your FAFSA answers the result of the formula is the EFC. The lower the EFC the more aid you qualify for. This number does not mean how much you get or how much you pay. It may say on the SAR you may qualify for a Pell but that is not all the aid you get it is just saying you may qualify for it. ! They will send your SAR to the colleges you listed on the FAFSA which you applied to. The only way you find out how much aid you qualify for is those colleges will offer you a financial aid award. Each college award will be different. You look them over and pick the best one for you. Usually for fall the awards will be given early mid April. They will email and usually tell you my mail too that your award is ready. Here are sample awards, notice the different EFCs so you see how it factors in. http://www.collegeincolorado.org/Financial_Aid_Pla...Another great thing to read all about FAFSA and federal aid: http://studentaid.ed.gov/students/attachments/site...Awards for fall are given early mid april. We got a postcard notification telling us to check her college website where she logs in....Show more