To apply for financial aid to most of the universities in the United States as an international student, you have to fill the (College Board College Scholarship Service) CSS Profile, a profile required by many private colleges and universities to determine your eligibility for non-government financial aid, such as the institution’s own grants, loans, and scholarships. 

The CSS Profile can be accessed through https://cssprofile.collegeboard.org/ . Federal Aid is not available to international students and hence international students are not required to fill the FAFSA. Very few universities ask for the International Student Financial Aid Application hence CSS form is the most widely accepted Financial Aid application. You can log into the portal by using the same credentials you used for the College Board (where you applied for the SATs). While registering, ensure that you choose the correct year. If you are going to be a freshman in the year 2021, you should choose 2021-2022.

The CSS Profile is available on the 1st of October every year and it is advisable to fill it as soon as possible; it requires you to find out financial information and return statements from your bank which could be time-consuming. Filling it right in the end when you’re in a hurry can result in a poorly informed application with errors that could affect your aid. The registration fee is $9 and there is an additional application fee of $16 for every university you send your CSS form to.

The first step before you sit down to start filling your application is to gather the information you need. As an international student, you would need:

• Statement of Income (tax returns or a statement of earnings from the employer)
• Records of untaxed income (eg: child support received, Tax-exempt interest income, etc)
• Asset information (bank statements, investments, real estate equity, etc)     

Once you have collected all the documents, you can start filling in all the questions. There is a panel on the left with all the sections making it easy for you to navigate between sections and a tick mark appears on the sections once you have completed them. A yellow box appears on the right side which explains a lot of questions asked on the CSS Profile. As you keep filling out the information, your progress is automatically saved.

The first few sections are about the demographics and members of your household and your parental relationships. Further, the application asks for your academic information which is pretty self-explanatory, and then they proceed towards asking questions about tax returns and assets. A lot of times students hesitate to put in their asset information since they feel it can affect the amount of aid they receive, but financial aid usually depends on tax returns so all real estate including the primary residence and rental property should be mentioned. If you are dependent on your parents, you will be asked to fill out the information about assets and tax returns of your parents, and there will be a separate section where you will have to fill out your tax return, real estate, and assets if any.

Explanation and Special circumstances is the section where you can explain anything that you feel will affect your financial aid or any other explanation about your financial situation which you haven’t mentioned anywhere else in your CSS application.

Before the application asks you for financial details, it requires you to “select the currency you will use to complete this application”. Make sure you use the currency you choose and not put in information after converting it into dollars since universities will automatically convert it to dollars to determine the amount of financial aid you should receive based on your application.

There is a submit option right at the bottom to submit your application. Before you submit your application you will be able to preview it. Payment for the application can be made online. Lastly, make sure you submit your application at least a week before the deadline. Get in touch with counselors at UniRely who can help you fill out the CSS Profile and ensure the highest financial aid!