The Free Application for Federal Student Aid

Whoo-hoo! It's free! Calm down, Sparky-just the application is free, not the money. The FAFSA (yes, more acronyms brought to you by The Government Who Invented Acronyms, or TGWIA) is a 100-percent free application. It also happens to be the birth mother of your financial aid. A great deal of data is collected from this form and run through a government computer, which allows Big Brother to know that much more about you. Feel comfy now? Good, let's proceed.

With your No. 2 pencil, follow the instructions step by step. (Do not use a No. 3 pencil, as this will cause a chemical reaction with the special government ink and cause the FAFSA to self-combust. Actually, nothing exciting will happen, but wouldn't that be cool?) It's a pretty straightforward application, but just in case you can't figure out what to do, the federal government has provided useful instructions like this one for the driver's license number section: "Write in your current driver's license number and the abbreviation of the state in which the license was issued..." Whew! Good thing Uncle Sam was there to hold my hand through that toughie.


Despite the obviousness of some of the sections, though, you will want to read the instructions because other sections have specific requirements, while still others refer you to a worksheet in the back of the booklet. Also, don't forget to read the section on how to get the FAFSA results sent to the schools of your choice. Make sure that you have the proper school code to fill in on the FAFSA; otherwise, the school will not receive the report and your aid will be (you guessed it) delayed.

First important point about the FAFSA: The instructions make it clear what you, graduate student, either dependent or independent, are to fill out. By law, you are not required to fill in parental information on the FAFSA in order to receive federal aid. However, your school may require you to fill out the FAFSA parental information section to qualify for school-based aid. Make sure you check with the financial aid office on this! This mistake has cost many students time and benefits in the financial aid process.

"That's not fair! I don't want to bug my parents for their income and tax information. I'm an adult." News flash: Get over yourself. The school will do whatever it can to make it seem as if you don't need aid. This strategy often includes basing your financial need on your parents' income, even if you don't rely on them for support or haven't spoken to them in years. If your parents can claim you as a dependent on their taxes, even if they don't actually claim you, your school is allowed to figure that into the formula to determine the extent of your financial need.

Don't lie on your forms. People will tell you to "make yourself look as poor as possible." Schools generally have a set formula on how to distribute their financial aid and are pretty good at catching low-income fabrications. Realize that, if you get caught, you may face serious consequences, such as denial of aid or administrative discipline. And, besides, lying is very unattractive.

Along with the no-lying thing is a much more benign, obvious point: Be consistent. Your numbers on the FAFSA should match your numbers on the school application, as they should match the numbers on any loan application. Separately, it doesn't make a difference, but if your financial aid office gets a hold of your FAFSA and sees that you have even the slightest discrepancy of information (especially regarding income), the financial aid office will likely put a hold on your application until the discrepancy is resolved. If this hold means waiting a few weeks for you to produce documents showing the correct information, so be it. Always make sure that you use the correct information to avoid delays-and to avoid looking like a moron. It's not as bad as lying: people will still love you, but they'll pity you for your ineptitude.

Once you send in your FAFSA, you can relax for a couple of weeks. But that's not the last you've seen of your FAFSA. Like a lost puppy, the FAFSA will come wandering back to you in about a month, but this time it's changed its name. You are now looking at the lean and mean SAR (Student Aid Report). This form is basically the aid office's "rough draft" of your application. You just need to run through it, correct any mistakes, sign it, and send it back. Check again that you put the proper school codes on it (call your school to confirm if you're not absolutely sure-sometimes law schools have different codes from their undergraduate university counterparts). Once you send that SAR back to the dark annals of the Federal Student Aid Processing Center (FSAPC), it'll send a final copy in a few weeks to you and your school.

You may obtain an electronic version of the FAFSA on the World Wide Web at the Department of Education's Web site. This downloadable software gives you step-by-step instructions as you fill out the form and then transmits the data using your modem. The information is instantly processed, and your SAR is done within a week. Now that's service! However, if you are concerned with Internet security, be aware that you will be sending personal information over the Internet.