Why Every Student Needs a PIN

The best steps you can do to make your path to college financial aid is to (and one of your parents) to request a PIN. A PIN, or Personal Identification Number, is assigned by the U.S. Department of Education and is available free of charge at www.pin.ed.gov.

The PIN is a great tool for students as they apply for financial aid and beyond. The PIN can be used to:

• Electronically sign the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), dramatically reducing processing time.
• Make FAFSA corrections online.
• View the status of the FAFSA on the Web.
• View and/or print the Student Aid Report, a listing of FAFSA information.

What you need before applying

        The student and the parent need to apply separately.

        Have the date of birth, social security number and middle initial on hand and you are ready to get online and apply.

Keep the confirmation that your form was received, or write down your confirmation number.

If you provided an e-mail address on your PIN application, you will receive a PIN e-mail notification message within three business days that contains instructions for retrieving your PIN. This PIN e-mail message should be delivered to your inbox. However, this e-mail message is sometimes perceived as unsolicited mail by your e-mail provider and is directed into a bulk mail folder or a junk mail folder. If after three days you have not received your PIN e-mail notification message in your inbox, please check all other folders in your account. 

Parent’s email address is sometimes more reliable because they have tendency to not change email addresses as much as students.  You must really watch the bulk mail folders in Hotmail and Yahoo accounts.  Very easy to miss the email that retrieves the PIN number.

PIN Challenge Question and Answer

The U.S. Department of Education provides the highest level of security to PIN users. Users must register a Challenge Question and Answer. Users select from a list of questions (such as "What is your mother's maiden name?") and provide the answer. The Challenge Question and Answer need only be registered once.

The Challenge Question and Answer information is gathered upon PIN registration. Remember  this challenge question.  It will be used to retrieve your PIN. 

However, those who obtained a PIN prior to December 27, 2004 will be required to register their Challenge Question and Answer prior to using their PIN. To do this, users should visit the PIN web site at www.pin.ed.gov and select "Activate My PIN."    Save your pin, you use the same number year after year.

What are the other choices on the PIN website?

            Check PIN status:
                        Tells you if you already have a PIN number and what email address it was sent to

Request a duplicate PIN:
If you have a PIN, but don’t know it, this choice helps you get it back by sending your PIN  number to the original email addres you gave them or by mail, but not both

Request a new personalized PIN:
            Must know old one, but allows you to change the PIN to a number you can
            remember.

Update personal information:
            Here is where you can change your challenge question if you have forgotten the            
            answer.  Or you can change your name here.

Disable my PIN:
            Go here if you think your PIN number security has been jeopardized or if you think you have more than one number.

Reestablish PIN:
              Here is where you reestablish an old PIN number.

           

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