| PublicationDate: 3/29/96 Summary: 1996-97 FAFSA Processing - Announcement #22 Author: ODAS - Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary - SFA Announcement # 22-- March 29, 1996 This is announcement number 22 in our series of daily FAFSA updates 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. Status of Applications as of March 28, 1996. No./Percent. Expected FAFSA No. of Paper of Paper Apps. Date to Receipt Date Apps. Rec'd. Processed Complete =============================================== Jan 1 - Jan 31 437,675 432,777 (99%) Mar 31 Feb 1 - Feb 15 697,480 649,642 (93%) Mar 31 Feb 16 - Feb 29 881,626 546,744 (62%) Mar 31 SUBTOTAL: 2,016,781 1,629,163 (81%) Mar 1 - Mar 15 969,248 247,903 (26%) Apr 15 Mar 16 - Mar 31 526,423 30,245 (6%) TOTAL 3,512,452 1,907,311 (54%) Note: Expected Date to Complete reflects the date that the Department expects all paper applications with these receipt dates to have been entered and processed by the Central Processing System. B. FAFSA Notes The Department has become aware that some students think they have submitted a 1996-97 FAFSA when in fact they have submitted a 1995-96 FAFSA (and vice versa). This confusion happens every year and students need to be sure which form they have completed and submitted, particularly if they think they are applying for 1996-97. Sometimes mentioning the color of the form may help to identify what year form the student actually completed. Please note that a fax or photocopy of the FAFSA may be used for any unofficial hand calculations that schools may wish to perfom to estimate award packages, but students cannot fax or photocopy a FAFSA and submit it for official processing. Nor can institutions that are keying FAFSAs for students to submit through EDE accept photocopied/faxed forms. In addition, all forms must have the student's signature as well as an SSN. If these and certain other conditions are not met, Multiple Data Entry processors will return the FAFSA forms with a letter of explanation. C. FAFSA Express Signature Pages FAFSA Express signature pages began to be keyed around March 15, as we indicated in previous announcements. As of March 25, ACT had keyed all signature pages (3,247) that had been received by February 19 and transmitted them to the Central Processing System for processing. Institutions who have not yet received ISIRs for FAFSA Express applicants should receive them shortly. Please note that even though FAFSA Express signature pages are being processed as history corrections, FAFSA Express applications that enter the Central Processing System first will be treated as an 01 transaction. D. Processing on the weekends The Department has become aware that there may be some confusion about FAFSA processing on the weekends. The Multiple Data Entry contractors are keying data from FAFSAs on the weekends; however, the Central Processing System does not perform a compute on the weekends. Schools will therefore not receive applications with a process date from the weekend. CPS does not process applications on the weekends because we are unable to perform data matches with other agencies on the weekends and because this is the time when the CPS staff performs database and periodic equipment maintenance. Thank you for your understanding and for your suggestions for additional announcements. We hope this information is helpful to you. |