Financial Aid Portal - Navigation
This pages explains the different sections of the Financial Aid Management Portal.
This section contains your biographic information and some basic financial aid data.
- Student ID = FAM ID: This is not your WVC Student ID. Your FAM ID is your social security number. If you
do not have a social security number, your FAM ID is assigned by the WVC financial
aid office.
- Student Name: Last, First: This is your name as it exists in the WVC Financial Aid Management (FAM) system.
This should be same as the name on your social security card. If it is not, please
contact the financial aid office.
- Period: The award year of the financial data being viewed.
- Session: At WVC, our financial aid year goes from Fall through Summer. So "2015 to SUMMER
2016" means that the data showing includes sessions Fall 2015 through Summer 2016.
- Status for Financial Aid: This is the status initially assigned in FAM due to information on your FAFSA, WASFA,
or scholarship information.
- Estimated Cost of Attendance: This amount is based on your assigned budget and your enrollment level for each quarter.
This will adjust up and down dependent on your enrollment, or a change to your assigned
budget.
- Expected Family Contribution (EFC): This amount is populated from your FAFSA or WASFA. Students that do not have a FAFSA
or WASFA loaded in FAM for the award year will have a $0.00 for the EFC.
- Student Need: Your Cost of Attendance minus your EFC equals your Need.
- Academic Status for Financial Aid: This function is not enabled. You can check your academic status by going to the WVC Kiosk. If your financial aid awards are closed due to not meeting the terms of our Satisfactory Academic Progress Policy, you will receive a letter in your WVC student email account.
What is the Shopping Sheet?
- The Shopping Sheet is a standardized form that was designed by the U.S. Department of Education. It is NOT an actual award letter, but a consumer tool to help provide information about the costs of attendance. Although some of the information in the letter is taken from your actual data, much of the data is estimated data that might apply to a general group of students at WVC. If asked to provide an award letter to an agency or scholarship donor, do not use the Shopping Sheet, but rather your actual WVC award letter.
Where can I find my actual award letter?
- Your award letter is sent to your student email account. The email has an .rtf attachment. The file type ".rtf" is a "rich text format" file. You can save it to your desktop and open it using Word, Open Office, or other such reader.
Why is the Estimated Cost of Attendance in the Shopping Sheet different from the Estimated Cost of Attendance listed in the Portal under Financial Aid Inquiry?
- The Shopping Sheet Estimated Cost of Attendance is a general estimated amount for a fulltime student (3 quarters) at WVC for that award year. The Cost of Attendance listed under "Financial Aid Inquiry" section is your actual assigned budget combined with your enrollment level. Enrollment level is assumed to be fulltime when initially awarded, and is adjusted according to your actual enrollment level.
What award information can I see in the FAM portal?
- Your awards will be listed as: OPEN, PENDING or CLOSED – (along with a reason for
the closed awards).
- The session for each award will be showing
- Note about LOANS: The Gross amount of your loan will show once awarded. The "Net" amount will be slightly smaller, and does not show in the FAM portal.
In this section you can find additional notes from the financial aid office. If you
see a note here, please follow up on it as soon as possible to avoid delays in processing
and/or disbursing your financial aid.
- REQUIRED ITEMS: The items listed with a leading "RQ:" that do not have a "date received" are required
items that we need from you. The "date due" is the date the item was posted in the
financial aid management system. For most items, the tracking information does not
go away once a requested item is completed; just remember to watch for the completed
date, so you don't resubmit previously submitted documents. Once the completed date
is entered by our staff, your submitted document has been received, tracked in, and
placed in the bin to be processed.
- INFORMATIONAL ITEMS: The items which do not have a leading "RQ" are informational or optional items only.
Some of these items may include responses to an appeal or request from you. If you
have any questions about the description or comments related to any item, just contact
the financial aid office for details.
- FINANCIAL AID DISBURSEMENT INFORMATION: Information regarding disbursement of your financial aid will be posted in this section.
- Understanding the disbursement information (See the Understanding Disbursements tab to find out how to tell if your tuition & fees have been paid, and if your check calculation process has begun).
This section is informational only. This section shows your total loan amounts for
all Federal Stafford/Direct Student loans from WVC that are in our Financial Aid Management
(FAM) system. Private loans and loans from other schools will NOT be included in this
section. For additional details on all of your student loans, visit the NSLDS website.