Summary: Signature Hold File Time Restored to 14 Days

Publication Date: February 27, 2006

Author: G. Kay Jacks, General Manager, FSA Application, School Eligibility and Delivery Services

Summary: Signature Hold File Time Restored to 14 Days

Posted on 02-27-2006

We would like to alert you to a change in the maximum number of days that student Web applications and corrections are placed in the Signature Hold file by the Central Processing System (CPS).

When a student submits an application or correction through the Web and indicates they will mail a signature page or electronically sign the record at a later time, their record is placed in a Signature Hold file, pending receipt of the signature. If a signature page or electronic signature is not received within a specified number of days, the student’s record is processed and a rejected Student Aid Report (SAR) is mailed to the student to sign.

Last fall, we announced that the maximum number of days that student records would be placed in the Signature Hold file for 2006-2007 would be reduced from 14 days to 7 days. This change was made to process applications and corrections more quickly, after we determined that a majority of student records with missing signatures are resolved and removed from the Signature Hold file in seven days or less.

However, upon reviewing 2006-2007 processing trends since January 2006, we have noted a substantial increase in SAR printing from the same time last year, which we believe is linked to the decrease from 14 days to 7 days. As a result, we have decided to restore the 14-day maximum for the Signature Hold file. The process will now function as it did during the 2005-2006 cycle.

NOTE: Notice of the original reduction to seven days was published in the 2006-2007 Summary of Changes for the Application Processing System (page 25), School Electronic Process Guide (page 17), and Student Web Application Products Process Guide (page 11), all of which are currently available for download from the Department’s Federal Student Aid Download (FSAdownload) Web site, located at http://fsadownload.ed.gov. Please take note of the change described in this message when viewing the current drafts of these documents.