2025-26 First-Year & Transfer Students

Steps to Apply

The first step to access your financial aid package is to submit your applications!

File the FAFSA®

For federal financial aid, complete the 2025-26 FAFSA^® ( Wake Forest’s FAFSA^® School Code is: 002978) as early as November 19, 2024 but no later than:

• December 1, 2024 (Early Decision I and Early Action)
• January 1, 2025 (Early Decision II and Regular Decision)
• March 15, 2025 (Transfer)
• November 1, 2025 (Spring Transfer)

The 2025-26 FAFSA^® uses 2023 federal income tax return data.

To inquire about the status of your FAFSA^®, call the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 800.433.3243, or log in to studentaid.gov using your account username and password (FSAID) and then navigate to the account Dashboard and select “2025-26 FAFSA^® Form” from the “My Activity” page. The application status will be one of the following:

Draft: Your section of the FAFSA form is incomplete.

In Progress: You provided your consent, approval, and signature to your section of the FAFSA form, but the FAFSA form has not been submitted yet.

In Review: You have submitted your form and your application is still processing.

Processed: Your application was processed successfully. No further action is needed.

Action Required: Your application requires further action from you or your contributor(s). In some cases, you may need to contact your college or career/trade school to resolve the issue.

Closed: Your FAFSA form was never submitted and can no longer be submitted because the federal FAFSA deadline passed.

To apply for only federal financial aid, please notify the Office of Student Financial Aid and do not complete the CSS Profile^® and IDOC steps.

Complete the CSS Profile^®

For Wake Forest need-based scholarship funds, complete the 2025-26 CSS Profile^® (Wake Forest’s CSS Code is: 5885) as early as October 1, 2024 but no later than:

• November 15, 2024 (Early Decision I and Early Action)
• January 1, 2025 (Early Decision II and Regular Decision)
• March 15, 2025 (Transfer)
• November 1, 2025 (Spring Transfer)

The CSS Profile^® is free for families with income up to $100,000. Wake Forest does not provide individual fee waivers.

Parents should review CSS Profile Step-by-Step for Parents for instructions.

To inquire about the status of your CSS Profile^®, call CSS at 844.202.0524.

If your parents are separated or divorced, both of your parents must complete separate CSS Profiles.  If either parent is remarried, information about the spouse’s income, assets, and dependents residing with the family must also be included. You and your “FAFSA parent” should begin the process by completing a CSS Profile^®. If you indicate on the CSS registration form that your parents are separated or divorced, an e-mail from CSS will automatically be sent to you. You should forward this e-mail to your other parent and request that he or she also complete a CSS Profile^®, and submit the required supporting documents (2023 income tax returns, including all schedules, W-2 wage statements, and any applicable S-Corporation or partnership returns). Your financial aid application cannot be processed until this information is received by CSS.

It is highly recommended that the student and the “FAFSA^® parent” be the first to complete a CSS Profile^®.

Although the other parent can start the application at any time, the other parent will not be able to complete the application until the student selects a college that requires the CSS Profile^® from both of the divorced or separated parents. The other parent will need to create a College Board account before providing the required information. To maintain confidentiality, the student and the parent with whom the student has lived longer will need to ensure that the other parent does not know the student’s College Board account password.

Submit All Documents in IDOC

If applying for Wake Forest need-based scholarship funds through the CSS Profile^®, a student and her/his parents and stepparents must submit copies of 2023 federal income tax forms (including all schedules, W-2 wage statements, partnership tax returns and schedules, and S-corporation tax returns and schedules to the College Board’s IDOC service. Submission to IDOC is required even when federal tax information (FTI) was imported to the FAFSA^® through Direct Data Exchange with the IRS. CSS Profile^® applicants receive instructions for IDOC submission, after submitting the CSS Profile^®.

After reviewing application materials, the Office of Student Financial Aid may determine that additional information is needed. If you receive a request for additional information, please respond promptly to avoid delaying your application.

*** IDOC PROCESSING TIME NOTICE ***
The College Board’s processing time for uploaded documents is approximately one to two weeks. Please allow a minimum of two weeks from your time of document submission to IDOC, to see those documents reflected as received in your Wake Forest portal, or to contact Wake Forest to confirm our receipt of documents. Please do not upload the same documents to IDOC more than once.