I probably shouldn’t use the word “headache” as I’ve had one for most of the past two weeks (first an ear infection, which has gotten somewhat better, but I now seem to have added “sinus congestion” who else do you know can get a sinus infection while on antibiotics?!)
Anyway, since it feels like my right eyeball might pop out, Tracey was helping me fill out my financial aid paperwork (in all honesty she’d be helping me anyway, but it sounds better that way).
I had remembered to sign up for a PIN, which you have to do online, and then they email it to you a few days later… actually they send you an email telling you that you can get the PIN for three days at a certain website.
I had dutifully filed that away somewhere safe, and retrieved it today. All seemed well until:
“It’s not working” she said.
“What’s not working?”
“The PIN.”
I went back to check the email again, but yes it said that the PIN would only be available online for 3 days back in June. However, it did seem to work to let me login to the FAFSA website.
She showed me the online form. They ask you to enter your Social Security Number, but it appears only as ********* I guess they figure you might be filling this out somewhere in public? They also want you to enter your birthday in mmddyyyy format, but it too appears only as a row of ***.
I carefully retyped those, carefully typed my PIN… and still no go.
And again.
No go.
Then I re-read the entire form.
And realized that we had put my first name where it asked for last name, and last name where it asked for first name.
Once we changed that, voilà ! It worked.
“The first shall be last” may be biblical, but the government isn’t interested :-)
UPDATE: I received an email confirmation that my FAFSA had been processed the next day.