I am hoping to fill out the Federal Student Aid application to help me get financial aid for college. am i suppose to wait until my senior year to start filling those kinds of things out? help please im tryin to prepare myself for college an di dont have a clue of what I am doing. Plus I don’t have any money 
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You have to wait until the standard enrollment period (Jan-March) of the year, prior to your planned attendance that school year (starting with the Fall semester). So if you’re a highschool junior this year, you will need to wait until Jan. 2012 to fill anything out.
The FIRST thing you need to do, and you can start doing now, is to start applying to colleges – though you’d still be a year early for doing that.
Here is a previous answer I gave. Hope it helps:
I am a parent and usually get everything but this whole process was very confusing. My daughter started college this fall.
First of all here is a timeline for you as a senior. It will help you tremendously: Its on student aid on the web in case the link does not work: http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/timeline.jsp?tab=applying
This site is very helpful to explain anything about financial aid. You can put a word in the search or just look around it. You will learn so much from this and it answers lots of your questions: http://www.finaid.org/
Sign up here for scholarships. They will email you when some come available that appy to you. Its fastweb incase the link does not work: http://www.fastweb.com.
Federal financial aid. This does not mean the govt will pay for all your college. They will give you aid. Aid means help and support. This aid comes in grants, student loans, parent loans, and federal work study. This aid is given based on you and your family’s financial need. Grants do not get paid back by anyone.
Student loans are stafford loans subsidized and unsubsidized. You dont apply for these, they offer them to you and you accept or deny them. The student pays them back. This is great aid because they interest rate is low, its fixed rate and the pay back time is great. Parent loans are offered to the parent to apply for. They apply online and it goes by their credit if they get approved. Again, this is good aid because of the fixed low interest rate and the time to pay it back. The parent pays this loan back. Federal work study is where the school posts jobs for you to apply to either at the school or a nearby community they work with. So say they offer you 1000.00 work study aid, that is 500.00 per semester. So you apply and get the job . You will get paid at least minimum wage, no more than 20 hours and they work around your college schedule, you get paid a check just like a regular job every week or 2 weeks. The govt will be paying that salary. When you reach the 500.00 each semester the job will end unless the school or the job in the community want to hire you on and pay your salary. You indicate you want this on the FAFSA.
When are the student stafford loans and parent loans paid back
This link is from student aid on the web so look for it there if the link doe snot work: http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/repaying.jsp
You need to apply for FAFSA (online for faster responses), free application for federal student aid not before but the closest to Jan 1 of the year you need it. The govt makes all the aid available for students Jan 1 and its a lot, as time goes by they give out less to each student cuz they have to spread it out for all applicators. They let you do an estimate if your taxes are not done yet. For example my daughgter went fall 2010. Jan 1 I did the FAFSA using our 2008 taxes and then when we got our w2 forms we did our 2009 taxes right away and then you can go back on FAFSA home page and make corrections whrere it says to on #3.
The take all the financial infor on the FAFSA and come up with your EFC, estimated family contribution, or how much your family should be able to pitch in for your education, the lower EFC you have the more aid you will be offered. They will put this EFC in a report called SAR, student aid report. This will be 2-3 weeks from filing. YouLL get an email and you can see this SAR on fafsa home page #3. They will send this to the colleges you listed on the FAFSA. These colleges will then based on your EFC and how much aid you need offere you a financial aid reward early to mid april which will be a combination of all the above aid I mentioned. You compare the awards from the colleges and decide where you want to go. You then get to accept and deny each of the kinds of aid they offer you. Like you may not need 1000 of your stafford loan and want to lower it cuz you got graduation money or a 1000 scholarship. You can less it not raise it. Everyone has to do stafford loan entrance counseling online to accept that loan, its just information so you know the terms, read and answer questions, you can get them wrong and try again.
If all the finanial aid they offer you is not enough then you will need to get a loan from the bank to cover the cost of attendance.
My daughter’s cost to attend is 15,000 for 2 semesters.
She had to get 9000 in stafford loans, 1000 work study and the rest grants.
You get theaid by semester, it gets deposited into your college account, they will take out all their charges for tuition, meal plan, housing and fees and the rest is refunded to you for books and materials, whatever you need, sometimes a check or some school give students credit cards linked to their account. If you apply late, you might not get your money on time to attend or ontime to get books and that will need to come out of pocket until you get your aid.