A Student Aid Report (SAR) is not an official document that comes from some sort of separate or formal institution. Often, a college student misunderstands that their FAFSA application and their Student Aid Report are closely connected. The Student Aid Report is actually a simple summary of all of the answers provided in the much larger FAFSA. It is not the FAFSA itself that is sent off to a student’s schools of choice but is instead a copy of their Student Aid Report.

What Happens With Your Student Aid Report

The financial aid office of the school then takes the figures and data supplied in the Student Aid Report and uses it to determine just how much funding that particular student should receive. For instance, one school may have an institutionalized method of figuring and using the EFC or estimated family contribution that appears in the Student Aid Report. They might look at the fact that a set of parents is putting three students through college at once, and reduce the EFC. Another school might take the figures from the Student Aid Report and simply plug them into a universally applied formula for calculating aid amounts.

A student must understand, however, that they will get a Student Aid Report every year because they have to renew their FAFSA application each year as well. The good thing is that most of the steps necessary for getting the very first Student Aid Report, as well as the subsequent years of reports, can be done online.

Getting Your Student Aid Report Electronically

There are now ways of doing the entire FAFSA form and submission process electronically, and of obtaining all of the results, including the Student Aid Report in that format too. Because the online submission process asks the student to indicate the school or colleges that should receive a copy of the Student Aid Report, it really speeds things up. The school’s financial aid office will get the different documents and begin calculating the student’s need and seeing what funds are available, and the faster that this process happens the more likely the larger amount of aid.

This is actually pretty vital because there are some tight deadlines attached to the FAFSA process. The sooner that a student is able to get their general application and Student Aid Report to their college, the more likely that they are to get access to special state or institutional aid that might run out or be closed due to deadlines.

Getting Your Student Aid Report Done Early

Remember too that many of today’s schools and colleges have a first come, first served system for doling out financial aid. This indicates just how important it is to be one of the first to submit an accurate form. This points out the need to be as honest and accurate as possible, because it is possible to have a FAFSA verification request. This stops the form from being processed until the student submits the appropriate paperwork demonstrating the validity of the form. Such things can make them miss a deadline or lose out on funding, so accuracy is vital with the student aid report!