Apply for Financial Aid as a Newly Admitted Freshman

The FAFSA should be completed and submitted online. 

The FAFSA opens each year on October 1 and the priority filing date for prospective UAlbany undergraduates is December 1. 

The University at Albany Federal School Code to be entered on the FAFSA is 002835. 

If prompted, use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) to automatically load your federal income information to the FAFSA. This streamlines the application and eliminates the potential need to submit tax documents to the UAlbany Financial Aid Office. 

Have your Federal Student Aid ID (FSA ID) ready to electronically sign the FAFSA. Dependent students will need an FSA ID for themselves and one parent. 

New York State residents may link to the New York State Grants and Scholarships application at the end of the FAFSA. This application will determine your eligibility for NYS aid including the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP). 

You also must file the Excelsior Scholarship application. The Excelsior Scholarship, in combination with other student financial aid programs, allows students to attend a SUNY or CUNY college tuition-free. Applicants must be New York State residents, US citizens or eligible non-citizens, and have resided in New York State for 12 continuous months prior to the beginning of the term. Other eligibility requirements are listed on the New York State Higher Education website. 

While some institutions may estimate the Excelsior award amount, UAlbany excludes Excelsior Scholarships in preliminary financial packages. Eligibility is based on the application process and requires students to sign an Excelsior Scholarship contract with New York State. A preliminary financial aid package will only include information about grants and scholarships we're confident the student will be eligible to receive. 

The undergraduate NYS Grants and Scholarships school code for UAlbany is 0895.

Shortly after being accepted to the University at Albany, students are assigned a UAlbany pin number. Instructions on how to use the pin and log in to MyUAlbany are sent by Information Technology Services (ITS). 

Once UAlbany receives and processes the FAFSA, items may appear on the MyUAlbany Important Notices list. Financial aid processing cannot continue until these Important Notices are completed. 

Important Notices can be documentation requests, problems with your FAFSA that need to be fixed or processes that need to be completed by the student or parent. 

The student will receive notifications until the items are completed. Students can click each item in the Important Item list to get more detailed information on what’s needed to move forward. 

Important Notices can appear at any point during the aid processing cycle. Items most commonly appear on the Important Notices list after the FAFSA is filed and after students accept their Financial Aid award. 

Once you submit the requested documentation, or satisfy the outstanding request(s), we aim to review your documents within two weeks. Peak times, such as August, may result in processing delays. Please monitor your email for important updates or subsequent requests for information. 

If Important Notices are not resolved, it could prevent your award or refund being processed and/or applied to your account. 

Requested documents should always be submitted online, unless otherwise noted. You will receive notification via email and/or text message on how to upload these documents. If at any point you need to speak with a financial aid advisor, please feel free to contact our office at [email protected] or 518-442-3202.

The student's nine-digit UAlbany ID should appear on each page submitted. 

Note: For the protection of your information, students and parents are advised not to send documents with private information such as tax data, social security numbers or citizenship verification via email.

On MyUAlbany, students can review their financial aid and accept, reduce or decline their financial aid award offers. For information on how to accept awards, please visit the Accepting Awards page.

Once you’ve completed all the above steps, please visit our Financial Aid page for information on securing the aid you're awarded and applying for additional financial aid.