i already submitted a fafsa well before the deadlines (early january) but i got fafsa verifications(LIKE A WEEK BEFORE MY CLASSES STARTS MY SCHOOL DECIDES TO TELL ME) that i need to submit to my school and my parents still have to complete their taxes (which they recently did but i will have to wait a few weeks for it to process). My vereifications are still pending(whatever that means) and it has passed the deadline,can i still get a pell grant? can i still attend my classes untill my aid comes in
btw im from oklahoma
nancy2014-03-09T07:04:28Z
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Yes, you can still get a Pell grant. If you are enrolled and otherwise eligible, your school is required to process your application and award any aid you qualify for no matter when you apply (as long as it's before the federal deadline, which is June 30, 2014 for the 13/14 FAFSA and June 30,2015 for the 14/15 FAFSA) The school's priority deadline is used to determine eligibility for other sources of aid (such as scholarships) for which there may be a limited pool of funds. It is also used as the cut-off date for which the school guarantees that your aid will be processed in time to start the semester.
Verification is a process that the school uses to determine if the answers on your FAFSA are accurate. In most cases, a FAFSA is selected for verification by the Department of Education because their processing system identified something on your application that appears to be an error. If the FAFSA was selected this way, then the school has no choice--they have to complete the verification before they disburse your aid. Although it's a pain, verification often leads to a student receiving more aid, because students sometimes enter incorrect information that prevents them from receiving grants they would otherwise be entitled to. So, it may be to your benefit to cooperate as quickly as possible.
Policies vary from school to school, but in most cases schools use the date that the FAFSA was first submitted to determine whether or not you were on time. Usually, you can still attend classes if verification or corrections are still pending. However, there are sometimes limits to how long you can wait to provide verification information. If you don't turn it in by the required date, the aid will be cancelled until you do.
I think you should contact your FA department, because it sounds like there's some confusion about which FAFSA is being verified. If you are waiting for a transcript for taxes that your parents just completed, it sounds like you are talking about the 14-15 FAFSA. This is the FAFSA for next year's aid (but it's based on the 2013 tax return that people are just filing now). For classes that you're attending now, you would have to be using the 13-14 FAFSA, which uses the tax return from 2012, and that should have been filed last year.
Incidentally, the quickest way to complete verification of tax information is to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool. This will transfer your parents' tax information directly on to the FAFSA. Although the directions say that it takes 3 weeks before you can use it, very often it's sooner than that, often just a week or so. To use the tool, go back to your FAFSA application and click on the tab for financial information. There will be a question that asks whether your parent has filed a tax return. Choose "already completed". A series of questions will come up, including one that asks if they filed the return within the past 3 weeks. Answer "no" to all of those. You should then be given the opportunity to link to the IRS. Once you do that, you will see a screen where you enter the parents' name and address. Make sure you have the return in front of you and copy the information exactly as it appears on the return. For example, if the return has a middle initial on it, or an apartment number, make sure you put that on the screen. If something is misspelled on the return, enter the information on the screen the same way. If the return is available, you should be able to transfer it--but make sure you hit both transfer buttons at the bottom of the page. One will say "transfer" and the other will say "transfer now". If the return isn't available right now, go back a try each day until it's ready. If you use the retrieval tool, you may be able to complete the verification and receive your aid more quickly.