| PublicationDate: 3/26/96 Summary: 1996-97 FAFSA Processing - Announcement #18 Author: ODAS - Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary - SFA Announcement # 18 -- March 26, 1996 This is announcement number 18 in a series for financial aid administrators. For information on individual applications, parents and students should contact 319-337-5665. 1996-97 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) Processing Status Report A. Refiling FAFSAs The Department has received several requests for guidance about whether students should send in another 1996-97 FAFSA if they have not yet received their Student Aid Reports (SARs) or the institution has not been able to draw down an Institutional Student Information Report (ISIR). To date, the Department has advised that students should not complete another FAFSA. The benefits to filing a subsequent application are clear (i.e., parents and students will feel more secure that an application is being processed for them), but there are several reasons why we have not yet advised students to complete another FAFSA. 1. If students send in another paper FAFSA, they probably will not have this subsequent FAFSA processed any earlier. In fact, it will only serve to create a larger number of applications waiting to be processed. 2. If students send in an electronic FAFSA before their paper application is processed, they may face some difficulty if their institution or state agency uses application receipt date to determine their eligibility for student aid. If students' subsequent paper FAFSAs are processed before the original paper FAFSAs, this will also create problems with the receipt date. As we mentioned in an earlier announcement, the problem is that the Central Processing System (CPS) is unable to update the application receipt date for subsequent transactions. When a second, or subsequent, FAFSA is received by the CPS, the data from the last non-adjusted transaction on file for the student is duplicated (with the exception of the student's address and institution choices). In other words, even though the student's paper application may have actually been received at the Multiple Data Entry (MDE) processor first, students who send in an electronic FAFSA instead of waiting for their paper application to be processed will actually have their electronic application record processed by the CPS first. In this circumstance, when the paper application (which actually had the earlier application receipt date) gets processed by the CPS, the student's application receipt date from the processing of their electronic FAFSA will remain on the record. For example: February 12 - Student sends paper FAFSA to MDE February 16 - MDE receives paper FAFSA (application receipt date = 2/16/96) March 4 - Student sends electronic application to CPS (application receipt date = 3/4/96) March 6 - CPS processes electronic application (application receipt date = 3/4/96, process date = 3/6/96) March 8 - CPS processes paper application (process date = 3/8/96, application receipt date will not be updated and will remain 3/4/96) Institutions should note that ACT applications received between January 2 and January 5 will contain an application receipt date of January 5. Applications received by ACT after that date are dated with the actual date received. I-NET applications received from January 2 through 29 will contain an application receipt date of January 29. All other applications will be dated with the actual receipt date, including those applications that are now being keyed by NCS. Of the applications received by the end of January, 96 percent have been processed by the CPS. Therefore, institutions may feel more comfortable advising students who mailed in their applications in January to refile their applications at this time, if they have not received an ISIR or a SAR. However, the Department urges institutions to make students aware of the consequences of filing an electronic application in lieu of waiting for their paper applications to be processed. Institutions should note that we are suggesting, when students call the Federal Student Aid Information Center (800-4-FED-AID or 319-337-5665), that they contact their schools to inquire whether it would be helpful for the institution to receive a photocopy of the student's FAFSA. The Department has made this decision to give institutions the opportunity to make early award decisions based on this information. We appreciate your continued diligence and patience. |