Submitted the FAFSA? Don’t stop at “submitted.”

Hi there,

If you completed the FAFSA this week, you may be tempted to check it off the list.

Before you do, log back into StudentAid.gov.

I want you to look at the status of your student's FAFSA.

Go to the student's StudentAid.gov account and find the FAFSA under My Activity.

The status you're ultimately looking for is:

Processed

That means the FAFSA was processed successfully without errors.

If you see Action Required, don't ignore it. That means something still needs to be corrected—such as missing consent, approval, or a signature. Federal Student Aid also notes that a FAFSA cannot be fully processed until all required contributors have completed and signed their sections.

This is why I don't want families to think:

“We hit submit. We're done.”

Submission is an important step.

Processing is what you want to confirm.

Once the FAFSA is processed, open the student's FAFSA Submission Summary.

Check the Next Steps section.

This is where you may find something that still requires attention, including additional information a college needs or notice that the student was selected for verification.

And one important distinction:

The FAFSA Submission Summary is not a financial-aid offer.

The summary comes from the U.S. Department of Education and includes information such as the student's Student Aid Index and estimated federal aid eligibility.

The actual financial-aid offer comes later from each college.

Now pull up your student's college list.

The CSS Profile opened October 1, and some colleges require it in addition to the FAFSA to determine eligibility for their own institutional aid. Not every college requires it, and the deadlines vary by school.

So don't fill it out just because you've heard of it.

Check each college's financial-aid requirements first.

That's your weekend list:

✓ FAFSA says Processed
✓ FAFSA Submission Summary reviewed
✓ CSS Profile requirements checked for each college

That's enough.

I'm sharing a scholarship that is very different from the one I sent you last week.

It's open to students in grades 9–12, not just seniors, and the national first-place award is $35,000.

There's also something unusual about the application:

Your student's delivery matters almost as much as what they write.

I'll explain why Tuesday—and there's an important AI rule families need to know before students begin.

Angela Robles
College Funding & Essay Coach
The College Cost Hack

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