Forms and Verification

Verification is a federally mandated process to confirm the accuracy of the information provided by you and your parents on the FAFSA you filed. View the Mount Saint Mary College Verification Policy and Procedure Statement.

Your Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) will indicate if your FAFSA has been selected for verification.

The federal government selects which FAFSAs will be reviewed for verification. The following are the most common reasons for being selected:

• You were selected randomly.
• The data you provided on your FAFSA was incomplete.
• You provided contradictory information on your FAFSA.
• You provided estimated income information on your FAFSA.

All students selected for verification will be required at a minimum to complete a verification worksheet and to submit an official Federal (IRS) Tax Transcript and W-2 forms for the student and/or parent(s) or spouse from every employer for that tax year.

Important Notice: If you and/or your parents filed federal tax returns with the filing status of either “single” or “married filing jointly,” you may select the IRS data retrieval option on your FAFSA. This will allow the IRS to verify your tax information automatically, but you will still be required to send us copies of any and all student, parent(s), or spouse W2 forms.

You and/or your parents may request an IRS Tax Transcript by any of the following methods:

• Visit www.IRS.gov and select Order a Transcript.
• Call 1-800-908-9946.
• Complete form 4506-T and mail to the address indicated.
• Use the IRS FAFSA Data Retrieval Tool (DRT). Learn more about the benefits of the DRT.

Please do not have an IRS TAX Transcript sent directly to Mount Saint Mary College. You must make the request to the IRS to send the IRS transcript to your home address. Upon receipt, please keep a photocopy for your files, list your name and MSMC Student ID number at the top of each page of the IRS tax transcript, and submit it to the Student Financial Services Office either by fax, mail, or you can drop a copy off in person. 

Please send copies of requested documentation to our processing center:

Mount Saint Mary College

Student Financial Services Office

330 Powell Ave

Newburgh, NY 12550

Processing usually takes two to three weeks but may take longer during the summer months since they are peak processing time.

After you turn in all required documents, the Office of Financial Aid will compare them with the data you reported on your FAFSA. If errors are found, corrections will be made. If the errors are significant enough to change the amount of financial aid that you were awarded, the Office of Financial Aid will send you a revised award letter showing changes in award amounts. Please note that you may monitor your financial aid status on the MSMC Portal.

Verification must be completed before the Mount’s need based aid and aid from federal programs can be disbursed to your student account. If you are a federal work study student and are selected for Verification, your file must be verified before you may work. It is essential to complete the verification process on a timely basis to insure that financial aid is credited to your student bill.

Continuing students will not receive an award offering until verification is completed.

Incoming students will be extended anticipated aid credit pending verification until the end of October. If you have not submitted all requested documents by October 31st, the anticipated aid credit will expire. From this point, your aid will only be reinstated after all requested documents are submitted and verification has been completed.

Families seeking a special reconsideration of aid eligibility should note that federal regulations require a file to be verified before a reconsideration request may be reviewed.

Failure to submit all requested documentation will result in the forfeiture of your financial aid eligibility.

Students can check the "Documents and Messages" tab of the Financial Aid Link on the MSMC Portal for any outstanding documents that need to be submitted. It is the student’s responsibility to monitor their aid status through access to the student’s personal Mount account.