[me bickee wickee]

I'm soooo confused about this crap..
first off my mom doesn't tell me i need to fill this stuff out till now and im LOST

does anyone know about this?

[Eddie]

Um, yeah.

Most schools require a FAFSA. www.fafsa.ed.gov is the link. Go there and fill it out. First you need a pin -- one for you, and one for a parent. It takes 3-6 days for it to arrive (through e-mail; do everything online as it's MUCH quicker) and then you can fill out the form.

And then most private schools require the CSS Profile. Check if your school requires this. The link is https://profileonline.collegeboard.com/index.jsp. You can start filling it out ASAP, I think. Just make sure your school(s) requires it because if it doesn't, they don't waste your time.

Also, some schools have their own financial aid forms (like Columbia). Most schools also ask for a copy of you and your parent's 2005 tax returns -- maybe even the 2004 tax returns.

Check the financial aid website for your colleges. They'll have all the information you'll ever need.

good luck!

btw, all college financial aid deadlines differ. Some are as early as January 20th, and some as late as April. State schools tend to have later deadliens (March 1, April 1, etc.), while privates USUALLY have a deadline on March 1/February 1. ...wait, february 1st passed. JUST CHECK ASAP!

[sphynkter]

you should definitely have done this a while ago but i guess better late than never.

let's hope that none of your financial aid deadlines have passed.

umm go here http://www.pin.ed.gov/PINWebApp/pinindex.jsp to get two pins. one for you and one for one of your parents (either mom or dad, it doesn't matter)

-you'll have to wait atleast a day or 2 to receive it in your e-mail. while you're waiting for your pin you should get all your parent's w2 forms and 1040 forms. also, if you've held a job and have these types of forms you should get them out as well.

once you get your passwords you can follow the steps on http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/

you'll see steps that you should proceed through. just follow each step and you should be ok. it might seem a little hard at first but it's easy. also, if your parents don't have their tax stuff done for 2005 yet, just ballpark the figures by estimating from last year. once your parents actually do their taxes for 2005 and get back paperwork for it then you can make changes.

you should check for each of your schools if they require other things besides just the fafsa, such as css profile (this costs money but a lot of the private schools require it) or their own little financial aid application

good luck

[edit] ok my post is useless eddie posted a minute before i did