| PublicationDate: 3/13/98 Summary: 1998-99 Processing Status Update # 9 Author: ODAS - Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary - SFA Posted March 13, 1998 TO : Financial Aid Administrators FROM: Diane Rogers Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Student Financial Assistance Programs SUBJECT: 1998-99 Processing Status Update # 9 I am pleased to present you with my ninth message on the processing of the 1998-99 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). During the week of March 2-6, we processed 324,265 applications for the 1998-99 cycle, bringing our year-to-date total to 1,541,885 applications. Based upon our monitoring of application receipts from this and prior years, we believe that we have just passed the peak volume of FAFSA receipts. In the last two weeks, we received about 950,000 FAFSAs. This week, we expect to receive roughly 300,000 FAFSAs. It is normal for applications to take slightly longer to process during this period. Our Multiple Data Entry (MDE) contractors have already made progress reducing the number of FAFSAs waiting to be processed. Though the volume is beginning to abate, we expect the next few weeks to be peak processing weeks. In anticipation of the peak volume, our contractors added staff and began working additional overtime to keep processing forms as quickly as possible. During times of peak volume, it takes longer to process the forms received on a given day than during times of less volume. Peak volume is normally accommodated over several weeks: our MDE contractors process fewer applications than we receive during peak receipt weeks and, therefore, we expect a temporary and short-lived rise in the volume of forms that are awaiting processing. When receipts decline after peak, our MDE contractors continue to process FAFSAs at peak level, reducing the number of forms awaiting processing. We believe we are now in this stage. In the first three days of this week, our MDE contractors processed roughly 45,000 more FAFSAs than they received. This is a normal situation, and is fundamentally different from the processing difficulties two years ago. Those problems two years ago were due to systems problems resulting in some FAFSAs being stuck in the process. This year, all applications are being processed in the order in which we received them. Our MDE contractors have completed 70 percent of the applications they've received to date. During non-peak weeks, we expect our MDE contractors to process the forms within seven work days. Today, there are roughly 375,000 forms that are more than seven days old -- one-third of which are just eight days old. Even the applications which have been in process the longest were received only 13 days ago -- and there are only 1,300 of those. It is not unusual for applications to take as long as 13 days during the peak period. In the meantime, the Department continues to process electronic applications smoothly and quickly. If a student needs his or her application to be processed more promptly, we recommend that, if possible, he or she file an electronic FAFSA. Electronic FAFSAs are faster and easier for students to file and for the Department to process. They are also more accurate: only two-tenths of one percent of FAFSAs received via the Web have to be returned to the applicant because of incorrect or incomplete information, compared with 12 percent of paper FAFSAs. The following statistics are through Friday, March 6: FAFSA and Renewal Applications RECEIPTS PROCESSED YEAR TO DATE--GRAND TOTAL 2,590,574 1,541,885 I. Paper 2,486,994 1,438,305 II. Electronic 103,580 103,580 |