Fafsa aargh

No, it’s not a foreign language. It is just a reflection of my feelings, having just completed 2 federal aid forms-one for each son. These documents, called the Free Application for Federal Student Aid [aka Fafsa], are miracles of circular reasoning. In order to access the document, you put in information like student’s name, social security number, and birth date. Then you press the Next button, which takes you to the “confirm your identity page”, on which you fill in the student’s name, social security number, and birth date. The Next button here takes you to the actual application page, on which there are blanks for the…you guessed it… student’s name, social security number, and birth date. Mercifully, smart technology kicks in at this point, and the blanks have been filled in for you.
So, I went through the whole process once, then did it all again, noticing on boy number two’s final confirmation page that I could have chosen a button to pre-fill the second child’s application. That’s where the “aaargh” really sets in.
I really can’t complain too much-since it took me six years to finish the final two and a half years of my bachelor’s degree, I have plenty of helpful practice. And, if I did everything right this time, I should be able to access the applications next year and make small changes without having to completely re-file. Yay!