Find and Win College Scholarships: FAFSA, CSS Profile, Local Awards, and Renewals

Build one row per target college with these columns: Financial-aid office (email and phone, taken from the college’s own site), FAFSA required? — for merit, need-based aid, work-study, or appeals, each college decides separately, CSS Profile required?, Additional institutional forms, Priority filing date. Fill every cell from the college’s official financial-aid pages — not listsites, not last year’s counselor handout.

Priority dates hide in plain sight: look for “priority filing date,” “financial aid deadline,” or “recommended date” on the admissions and aid pages, and record any early-decision or early-action aid date separately — it often sits weeks ahead of regular decision.

Remember the clocks differ: one FAFSA form covers federal, state, and school aid for the academic year, but each program keeps its own deadline. A college that requires the CSS Profile will say so on its aid pages, along with any supplemental form of its own — record all of them now, in the same row.