5 Things to Do After Filing Your FAFSA® Form

FAFSA® Tips5 minutes

The financial aid process doesn’t end once you submit your Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) form. There are still five things you should do to prepare to pay for school:

1. Review your FAFSA confirmation.

2. Consider your Expected Family Contribution.

3. Apply for scholarships.

4. Make sure your schools have everything they need.

5. Correct your FAFSA form if needed. 

Increase your chances of getting more aid for school by taking a few steps after you file your FAFSA® form.

1

Review your FAFSA® confirmation.

After you complete and submit the FAFSA form online, you’ll see a confirmation page like the one below. This is not your financial aid offer. You’ll get that separately from the school(s) you apply to and get into. 

The FAFSA form confirmation page provides your confirmation number and an overview of what to expect after submitting the FAFSA form.
The FAFSA form confirmation page can provide aid estimates and other helpful tips to prepare you to pay for college.

However, the confirmation offers estimates for the federal student aid you might obtain from your school based on the information you provided on your FAFSA form. To calculate the actual amount of aid you’re eligible for, each school you apply to will send an offer that takes into account other factors, such as the cost of attendance. The estimates don’t account for private scholarships, or state and institutional financial assistance you may also be eligible for. Learn how school(s) calculate your aid.

Use our Federal Student Aid Estimator to get an idea of how much federal student aid you might get for college or career school.

The average annual cost includes the cost of attendance minus the average grants and scholarships for federal financial aid recipients and is affected by your family income.
Your school determines your aid by using the cost of attendance and your family income.

2

Consider your Expected Family Contribution (EFC).

The information you report on your FAFSA form is used to calculate your EFC. It’s very important to note that the EFC is not the amount of money your family will have to pay for college. Instead, the EFC is an index number used by financial aid offices to calculate your financial need. The formula they use is

Cost of attendance – EFC – estimated financial aid = Your financial “need”

Each school will do its best to meet your financial need. Some schools may meet 100% of your financial need, and other schools may only meet 10%—it just depends on the school and the financial aid they have available that year.

The EFC formula considers income, dependency status, family size, and the number of family members who will attend college.

3

Apply for as many scholarships as possible.

Since many schools won’t be able to meet your full financial need, you’ll need a way to pay the difference between the financial aid your school offers and what the school costs. Scholarships are a great way to fill the gap.

Don’t wait until you receive your financial aid offer to start applying for scholarships. There are thousands out there, but many have early deadlines. Set a goal for yourself; maybe you aim to apply to one scholarship per week. Make scholarship applications your focus while you wait for your financial aid offer. The applications may take some time, but the possible payout makes it all worth it.

See the link below for a list of places to look for scholarships.
There are several places you can look for school scholarship money.

Learn about where to find scholarships.

4

Make sure your schools have everything they need.

After your FAFSA form has been processed successfully, it’s a good idea to make sure the schools you listed on your FAFSA form have received everything they need. Find out if your school requires additional applications or documentation and submit any required documentation by the appropriate deadlines.

The 2023–24 FAFSA form was made available on Oct. 1, 2022. Even if you submit it early, that doesn’t mean you’ll get an aid offer right away. Each school has a different schedule for awarding and paying out financial aid. Contact your school to find out what it is.

Remember that your school disburses your aid, not the “FAFSA people” (the U.S. Department of Education’s office of Federal Student Aid). Contact your school’s financial aid office for details about when they send out aid offers.

5

Make FAFSA® corrections if needed.

After your FAFSA form has been processed (which takes about three days), you can go back and submit a correction to certain fields. This includes correcting a typo or adding another school to receive your FAFSA information. Log in with your account username and password (FSA ID) at fafsa.gov, and then select “Make Corrections.” You can add up to 10 schools at a time. If you’re applying to more than 10 schools, you have a few options to add more schools to the FAFSA form.

If you want to report significant changes in your family or financial situation, contact your school’s financial aid office.

The “My FAFSA” page displays your current application status, next steps, and additional actions like adding schools or making corrections.
You can make corrections to your FAFSA form via the “My FAFSA” page.

Note: Parents of dependent students can’t initiate a FAFSA correction. Students have to begin the correction process by logging in with their FSA ID at fafsa.gov, selecting “Make Corrections,” and creating a save key they can share with their parent.