Inconsistent Financial Aid Deadlines Can Be Confusing

If you've applied to Brown, Dartmouth, or Harvard, you have about two more weeks to complete both the FAFSA and the CSS PROFILE* to meet deadlines posted on their websites. If you’re applying to Princeton or want to study nursing at Penn, you really should have submitted financial aid materials by January 15th!

A quick look at local financial aid deadlines suggests that private colleges and universities press applicants to file documents several weeks earlier than public institutions, which often are guided by state requirements. Georgetown and GW list February 1st as deadlines for both the PROFILE and the FAFSA, while AU, Catholic, Howard, Richmond, Goucher, and Hood are willing to wait until February 15th. The University of Maryland and the College of William and Mary also want FAFSA’s by the 15th.

And then there’s the Ivy League. With logic that only a financial aid officer could explain, the Ivies manage to establish a range of deadlines that goes from the first day of November for some Early Decision (ED) applicants to as late as May 15—Yale appears to be in no hurry for the FAFSA. While the CSS PROFILE drives the process in most cases, applicants at Harvard, Brown, and Dartmouth need to submit FAFSA’s by February 1st.

If you live in the DC area and need help with these forms, you’ll have to go to Prince Frederick, Dundalk, or Baltimore to attend one of only three FREE financial aid workshops scheduled in Maryland before the first of next month or to Falls Church for one in Virginia . Most of Virginia’s Super Saturday events take place on February 6th (College Access Fairfax) or 13th (VASFAA), and the DC College Goal Sunday is set for February 21st—long after the three Ivy deadlines.

The following chart outlines the financial aid deadlines posted for the CSS PROFILE, FAFSA, and relevant institutional applications on each of the Ivy websites:

Institution	CSS PROFILE	FAFSA	Institutional Forms
Brown	11/1¹/2-1	2-1
Columbia	11-16¹/3-1	3-1
Cornell	11-1¹/2-15	4-15¹/5-1	1-4
Dartmouth	11-1¹/2-1	2-1
Harvard	2-1	2-1
Princeton		4-15	1-15²/2-1
U Penn	11-1¹/1-15³/2-15	4-15	11-1¹/1-15³/2-15
Yale	3-1	5-15

¹Early Decision Applicants
²Preferred submission deadline
³All nursing applicants

The Ivy League does a better job coordinating athletic schedules. But the real moral of the story is: check the individual financial aid deadlines for each school to which you applied if you hope to receive aid.

* The College Scholarship Service Profile is an independent application distributed by the College Board designed to give private member institutions a more detailed look at the finances of college applicants and their families.