- Joined
- Feb 8, 2014
- Messages
- 11
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AMCAS offers a Fee Assistance Program to individuals whose parent's and own combined income fall below 300% of the national poverty line for their family size. They require that you report parents' financial income under all circumstances, unless they're dead (literally - it's on their website).
My parents divorced and remarried later in life, and now file jointly with their spouses. My step-parents have never had any financial responsibility for me, and so I was interested in reporting my biological parents' income for eligibility purposes (I do not qualify with my step-parents' income). I immediately was denied, because the online application offers no way of delineating such details. Here's what I've learned through this process:
1) There is an appeal process. Contact FAP, and they will give you instructions on how to process an appeal.
2) The appeal process, in my case, has resulted in the same decision (although I'm waiting to speak with a supervisor - the summary report doesn't indicate that they looked at the information any differently).
3) Here's the kicker that I'm interested in sharing with everyone. After speaking with a very knowledgeable, yet brainless (she was capable of reading a pre-printed script), representative I learned that prior to the tax deadline (April) W2's are an acceptable proof of income. Not only that, but you can submit a W2 for only ONE parent and yourself. In other words, if one of your parent's has a low income, and the other brings home a few million, you can selectively submit the lower earning-parent's W2 with your own, and qualify. This changes after the tax deadline, and then they require the 1040, which your parents likely file jointly.
Now this really agitated me. I was trying to show proof of income via 1040s (filed jointly with my step-parents) and W2s for both of my biological parents via the appeal process, only to learn that they can't accept this form of proof of income post-April, and that, had I used just ONE of their W2s (and been dishonest) prior to April, I would have been approved.
I explained that to her, and asked her if that made any more sense to her than it did me, and she responded with "This is not a federally funded program, so AMCAS does not need to follow their guidelines, and we spend our money how we want". That's a direct quote - so prolific I had to write it down.
This is the company we rely on to find the doctors of America's future? Pretty scary.
My parents divorced and remarried later in life, and now file jointly with their spouses. My step-parents have never had any financial responsibility for me, and so I was interested in reporting my biological parents' income for eligibility purposes (I do not qualify with my step-parents' income). I immediately was denied, because the online application offers no way of delineating such details. Here's what I've learned through this process:
1) There is an appeal process. Contact FAP, and they will give you instructions on how to process an appeal.
2) The appeal process, in my case, has resulted in the same decision (although I'm waiting to speak with a supervisor - the summary report doesn't indicate that they looked at the information any differently).
3) Here's the kicker that I'm interested in sharing with everyone. After speaking with a very knowledgeable, yet brainless (she was capable of reading a pre-printed script), representative I learned that prior to the tax deadline (April) W2's are an acceptable proof of income. Not only that, but you can submit a W2 for only ONE parent and yourself. In other words, if one of your parent's has a low income, and the other brings home a few million, you can selectively submit the lower earning-parent's W2 with your own, and qualify. This changes after the tax deadline, and then they require the 1040, which your parents likely file jointly.
Now this really agitated me. I was trying to show proof of income via 1040s (filed jointly with my step-parents) and W2s for both of my biological parents via the appeal process, only to learn that they can't accept this form of proof of income post-April, and that, had I used just ONE of their W2s (and been dishonest) prior to April, I would have been approved.
I explained that to her, and asked her if that made any more sense to her than it did me, and she responded with "This is not a federally funded program, so AMCAS does not need to follow their guidelines, and we spend our money how we want". That's a direct quote - so prolific I had to write it down.
This is the company we rely on to find the doctors of America's future? Pretty scary.
