FAFSA & Application Priority Date

Application Priority Date - March 1st
UCF School Code: 003954

All students must apply or reapply yearly for financial aid.

To be given the greatest consideration, students should complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) prior to March 1st, the UCF priority date.

The online FAFSA is available January 1 each year and can be found at www.fafsa.gov.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will start accepting and processing individual tax returns beginning January 30, 2013. Financial aid applicants are strongly encouraged to file their 2012 federal tax returns as early as possible so that the tax data may be available through the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) when filing the 2013-14 FAFSA. The earliest that the DRT will have the 2012 tax information will be approximately 3 weeks after electronic tax filing or 10 weeks after paper tax filing. Although the DRT is scheduled to be available on February 3, 2013, the earliest that the DRT will have tax information for retrieval will be late February. If the FAFSA is filed based on estimated income data or prior to submitting the 2012 tax return, then eligible applicants should be sure to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool to update the FAFSA record once the returns have been submitted and the income data is available to be retrieved.      Not all applicants are eligible to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool.

• It is recommended to complete your taxes before filing the FAFSA; however, if you have not filed your tax return by February, submit the FAFSA using estimated figures. After you have filed your taxes, you can make corrections to your FAFSA as needed.

• If the priority date is missed, students should apply as soon as possible to be considered for financial aid that is still available, such as Pell Grants, Stafford Loans and PLUS loans.

• Students should not wait to be admitted to UCF before applying for financial aid.

• Students who apply for aid after July 15th should not expect their aid to be available until well after the beginning of the fall semester and should be prepared to pay their expenses.

• Failure to have a complete financial aid file at least 60 days prior to the beginning of each term may delay or prevent your receipt of aid.

• A broad range of scholarship programs are available throughout the year. Please review our scholarship listing for specific deadline dates for individual scholarships.