SFS: 2016-2017 Awarding Season Underway

Student Financial Services is in the midst of a marathon effort to review application materials, request additional information when necessary, assign awards to students and then notify them that their award is available to view in their SIS Student Center.  For first-year undergraduates, we have a very tight turnaround: regular decision applicants learned of their admission decision on March 25 and have until May 1 to decide whether to attend UVA. We work hard to get their awards to them before May 1 so they have all the financial information they possibly can to make an informed decision about whether to accept their offer of admission.

To get a sense of the scale of this undertaking, here are some statistics from the entering undergraduate population (as of 3/31/16):

• 4,869 Completed financial aid applications (FAFSA + CSS/PROFILE)
• 2,375 Preliminary awards sent
• 1,945 Students from whom SFS needs information before processing the application
• 247 Students with completed applications who are waiting for their award

After the middle of May (when we have also completed the same process for fall transfers), we turn our attention to the returning undergraduate and graduate students, all with an eye to having their awards complete by the time the Fall 2016 statement of term charges comes out in mid-July. 

When you factor in individual counseling sessions with parents and students who want to understand the details behind their awards, Days on the Lawn presentations, the sheer volume of applications, AND all the other regular activities... our financial aid team achieves an impressive amount of work!