The 2016 FAFSA Contest has come to an end. This year we’ve had record FAFSA rates in the region, with 800 more students filing this year compared to last!

The final results are listed below. The FAFSA data was provided by the U.S. Department of Education and reflects FAFSA submissions by April 1, 2016. The student leader from the following ten schools just won a $1,000 scholarship, provided by C3 Presents:

• Ann Richards, LASA, Manor New Tech, KIPP Austin Collegiate, Hutto, McCallum, Cedar Park, Hendrickson, McNeil and Westwood.

The following three schools won the VIP movie screening from Alamo Drafthouse.

• Ann Richards, Hutto and Hendrickson.

A few concluding notes:

• As a region, the total FAFSA submission rate was 49%, 4 percentage points higher than last year – and the highest ever for Central Texas schools.
• Ann Richards dominated the field from the beginning. 90% of their senior class filed their FAFSA before March 31. Well done, Eric Heineman and team.
• Hutto HS made a strong push and ended up winning the medium category quite convincingly. Good job, Erica Blando and team.
• Hendrickson HS also made a great final push. Hard work from Kara Tappendorf and her student leader helped secure the top spot in the large category.
• There was impressive work all around, but the largest schools ended up doing the best. The collective average of schools in the large category was much higher than the others.

Although we didn’t meet our regional goal for a 55% filing rate by March 31, we made a lot of progress. We learned a lot along the way and we’re eager to begin next year’s FAFSA push in October 2016. If you didn’t already know, students in the Class of 2017 can begin filing for financial aid on October 1, 2016 and they can use 2015 tax information. We expect this to be a game changer and it will enable more early filings next year. Click here to learn more about the FAFSA changes.