Verification Process

1. EFSC will notify you. Check your mail, student email, and your myEFSC message center regularly for verification-related requests.

2. You may also see a note on your FAFSA Submission Summary saying that your FAFSA has been selected for verification.

3. EFSC's Financial Aid Office will be sending out communications to students regarding verification information.

If your FAFSA has been selected, you will have to submit a Verification Form and certain financial or other documentation to the Financial Aid Office.

Documents requested will vary and can depend on whether you are a dependent or an independent student. The verification form for both types of students can be downloaded from our forms page.

Upon review, additional documentation will be needed, so continue to check your Message Center in the myEFSC Portal.

It’s highly recommended that you complete your verification as soon as possible so you can get details about your financial aid package. Your aid will NOT be offered until your file is complete, so you may be negatively affected due to decreased funding availability the longer you wait to submit your documents.

The deadlines for submitting verification documentation can vary based on when you last attended classes.

Generally, students should submit complete documents required for verification at least four (4) weeks before the end of a term or enrollment period. This provides the college enough time to process the verification and receive the corresponding Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) from the Department of Education’s Central Processing System (CPS), so if a student wants a federal loan, the loan can be certified before the student becomes ineligible. Students become ineligible for loans if the loan is not certified before the student is no longer registered for courses.

Consequence: If the student misses this deadline, it is possible that EFSC will not be able to certify a federal loan before the student becomes ineligible.

NON-NEGOTIABLE DEADLINE: Students identified for verification who complete a semester or who officially or unofficially withdraw from a semester and are not enrolled in the next semester of the same academic year must complete the verification process no later than 120 days after the day of the student’s last enrollment or before the Federal Register deadline, whichever is earlier. For this reason, students should submit complete verification documentation no later than at least two weeks prior to these non-negotiable deadlines. EFSC needs this reasonable amount of time to complete the verification process.

For the 2023-24 Academic/Financial Aid year, the Federal Register deadline is September 21, 2024. The Federal Register deadline for the 2024-25 year is not yet available.

Consequence: Missing the 120-day or Federal Register deadline will mean that the student is not eligible for disbursement of any additional financial aid for the applicable award year.

Students are sometimes identified for verification by FAFSA processing because they have submitted a correction to their FAFSA. When this occurs after initial packaging of aid or after initial disbursement of aid for a semester, the college removes any federal Pell grant funds until verification is complete. Students should submit verification documentation before the end of the semester or before official or unofficial withdrawal. If this is not possible, they are subject to the NON-NEGOTIABLE DEADLINE noted above.

Consequence: Missing this deadline will mean that we cannot reinstate any Pell grant that had been removed or disburse any loan allocation that required verification.

Undergraduate students under the age of 24 are considered dependent for federal student aid purposes unless they are married, have dependents other than a spouse for whom they provide more than half of their support, are an orphan or ward of the court, or are a veteran or active-duty member of the U.S. Armed Force.

If a student who is under the age of 24 does not satisfy one of these criteria, the odds of being considered independent are unlikely.

Living away from your parents or being self-supporting does not on its own, affect dependency. If you believe, however, that you should be considered independent due to a special circumstance, please contact the EFSC Financial Aid Office.

After the Financial Aid Office reviews your submitted documents, if we do not find errors on your FAFSA, verification will be completed, and you will receive an award letter indicating the amount of your financial aid awards.

If you cannot find original tax documentation, you can contact your tax professional for copies, go to any IRS Office and ask for copies of your tax information, call the IRS to request your tax information at 800-908-9946, or you can request or review/print applicable tax information at this IRS transcript website.

Verification documents can be submitted in the following ways:

• Download, complete and sign the dependent or independent form based on your status, then scan, and upload using the Financial Aid Document Upload Tool in the myEFSC Portal under Financial Aid Forms & Upload.
• Submit documentation in person to any EFSC campus Financial Aid Office.

Expect the processing time of your verification to take up to two weeks from the date all requested documentation has been received, but be aware that the EFSC Financial Aid Office experiences seasonal changes in processing volume which may affect processing times.

It’s highly recommended that you complete your verification as soon as possible so you can get details about your financial aid package. Your aid will NOT be offered until your file is complete, so you may be negatively affected due to decreased funding availability the longer you wait to submit your documents.

If you choose to not complete the verification, that is your choice, however, participation in the verification process is not optional if you want to receive federal financial aid.