Applying for Financial Aid – Regular Decision 2012 Applicants
The aid application process takes effort and planning. Parents and students need to work together to coordinate the many parts of applying for aid at Cornell. This post will outline our process and give you some important reminders.
Attending college is an investment for the family and the student, and we want you to have ample time to make this important decision, so please make every attempt to meet our deadlines. Our goal is to give financial aid decisions to admitted students at the same time that they receive their acceptance. This allows admitted students and their families plenty of time to decide about attending Cornell before the May 1 deposit deadline.
- You may have already visited our website and tested out our financial aid calculator (http://www.finaid.cornell.edu/cost-attend/financial-aid-estimator). If you haven’t done this yet and you are wondering whether you and your family should apply for aid, this is a great first step.
- If you are a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, you should apply using the following forms: http://www.finaid.cornell.edu/apply-aid/prospective-applicants/regular-decision-applicants.
- If you are not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, or are residing in the U.S. as an undocumented person, you should apply using the following forms: http://www.finaid.cornell.edu/apply-aid/international-applicants. To ensure consideration, applicants should be sure to submit all international financial aid materials prior to February 1.
Complete your 2011 federal income tax returns first and submit them to the IRS, as you will need this data when completing the CSS PROFILE and FAFSA forms.
The FAFSA form has a new feature that will allow most families to “Link to the IRS” to retrieve verified tax data directly from the IRS. This will avoid additional work for the family later in the process, so use this feature if you are able to do so. This link will not work for families with certain complex circumstances (such as parents who file taxes as “married filing separately”), but it will work in most cases.
We strive to make the aid process smooth for all involved. Please contact us if you have any questions as you make your way through this process.
Sincerely,
Gretchen Ryan
Thank you, this was helpful.
Hi! I suggest that you contact our office directly either by email – finaid@cornell.edu – or by phone – 607-255-5145 – to ask about your materials.
Hi josephchiang28. You are very astute! We do have a stated deadline of Jan 2, but we have noticed that we are still receiving some materials for international students. If you are planning to apply, you should get your materials to us as soon as possible, and definitely no later than February 1, as that is an informal extension of our January 2 deadline.