CSAC released an announcement regarding this year's Race to Submit competition:

"Given the significant delays and challenges in this 2024-25 financial aid application season, the Commission will not be hosting the traditional Race to Submit competition this year. We know many students have had difficulty in submitting the FAFSA and they will need support to successfully complete it to qualify for federal and state financial aid. Although the Dashboard will not be used as a competition tool, it is a tool to monitor financial aid application submission rates for your students through June 30, 2024.

We sincerely appreciate your patience and persistence in working diligently to help your students and their families complete their financial aid applications. Public high schools and school districts in California will need to ensure that all 12th graders complete a 2024-25 FAFSA or CADAA, unless the student has formally opted-out. Please continue to encourage students who are still pending to complete their financial aid application.

The 2024-25 Dashboard will be updated daily, and applications submitted and matched to a GPA by June 30, 2024 will be reflected on it. The Commission anticipates receiving the California Department of Education’s certified enrollment data by mid-May 2024 and will update the Dashboard with it. The All In for FAFSA/CA Dream Act webpage has great resources and materials to support successful financial aid application submissions."

Need to contact us?

Institutional Support phone number: (888) 294-0153

E-mail: schoolsupport@csac.ca.gov

California public high schools include public, continuation, and alternative schools. Private and adult education schools are not included in reporting.

All public high schools and districts are automatically included in the race and separated by the size of the senior class.

If your school is not listed, the Commission can manually add your school as long as the following parameters are met:

• Is your school a public/charter school?
• Is your school serving 12th graders?

If YES to both questions, schools can email their request to SchoolSupport@csac.ca.gov to be added to the dashboard. Please include the following information in your request:

• School name
• College Board Code (CEEB code)
• CDS Code
• Senior enrollment count as reported to CDE for the current academic year

High schools senior enrollment includes public, continuation and alternative schools. Private and adult education schools are not included as part of the total enrollment.

Enrollment counts are obtained from the California Department of Education (CDE), using October certified enrollment counts. Historically, the Race 2 Submit campaign is launched using the prior year’s enrollment counts. The CDE has provided the October 2023 certified counts and the dashboard has been updated with these updated enrollment counts.

FAFSA and CA Dream Act application counts are updated twice per week (on Sunday and Thursday) and reflect the total counts of submitted and completed financial aid applications for your school.The dashboard will be updated on a weekly basis until June 30.

High schools also submit GPA records, which are then matched with financial aid applications to process students for Cal Grant awards. High schools can confirm if GPAs have been submitted by pulling reports within WebGrants – please contact School Support @ 1-888-294-0153 for assistance with confirming your GPA submission.

At the start of the Race to Submit campaign, the Commission uses the prior year's certified October census senior enrollment data as reported to the California Department of Education (CDE). The CDE has provided the October 2023 certified counts and the dashboard has been updated with these updated enrollment counts.

Application submission data is updated from October through June 30 of the following year. The dashboard is refreshed twice a week on Thursday and Sunday nights. The dashboard will be updated on a weekly basis until June 30.

• A submitted FAFSA by a California high school senior; this includes applications with a blank SAI. CSAC does not receive applications with missing contributors.
• A submitted CADAA to the California Student Aid Commission by a California high school senior; this includes applications with a blank SAI and/or missing parent signature.
• A completed FAFSA/CADAA has an SAI and can be used to determine Cal Grant eligibility if the GPA is matched.

The Race to Submit displays two academic year cycles to provide a side-by-side comparison. Race to Submit will track FAFSA/CADAA submissions and completions through the June 30th Race to Submit competition deadline.

The Race to Submit uses both FAFSA and CADAA to measure application totals, while the Federal Student Aid only uses FAFSA for completion totals.

These are several reason for lower competition rates, including:

• Your school may be listed in different ways on the financial aid form or
• When applying for financial aid your student may have incorrectly inputted your school name. This happens if students entered your school name in different ways on the financial aid form.

Great job on your high school's submission numbers. For the Race to Submit campaign, we also measure the percentage (%) of financial aid applications that are matched to a submitted Grade Point Average (GPA); this information is displayed on the right-hand dial titled, "Completed Applications and Cal Grant Awards". Because this part of the data is looking at submitted GPAs, a low completion rate on this dial could indicate an issue with your high school's GPA submission – either no GPAs have been submitted or the graduation year that was provided in the GPA upload is incorrect. Contact our School Support team for additional information at 1-888-294-0153 or SchoolSupport@csac.ca.gov

From the RTS Dashboard, https://webutil.csac.ca.gov/Dashboard/, use the search bar to type in the name of your high school. Click "Add to compare". Continue to type the names of all the high schools you would like to compare, then click "Compare". Results will be displayed in graph and table format.

Please contact the designated System Administrator at your campus or district. They can create a WebGrants profile for you. If you do not know who your System Administrator is or don’t have one , please contact the California Student Aid Commission at 1-888-294-0153. With a WebGrants account, you can download student specific reports that can help you increase financial aid completions and GPA matching.

To view high school-level, district-level, or county-level data, use the search bar to type in the name of your high school/district/county. From the drop-down, click on your high school/district/county name to view that data. To export high school/district/county data as an Excel spreadsheet, click "Export". This exports data for all high schools, districts, and counties in California. Add filters to display desired results. Read the "About" link for more information on RTS features.

The California Student Aid Commission has several resources to provide counselor and educators with financial aid information at http://www.csac.ca.gov under the High School tab. Here you can find outreach materials and training opportunities to better inform your students about the various types of financial aid applications and opportunities.

Students and families can attend FREE Cash for College workshops throughout the year, across California for help completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) or California Dream Act Application (CADAA), by the May 2 priority deadline and September 2 deadline for community college and foster youth students. If you are interested in hosting or promoting a Cash-4-College event please visit https://www.cash4college.csac.ca.gov. Here you can search for workshops by location, zip code, school name and county.

If you are a high school staff member with WebGrants access, there are various reports you can pull to track your student’s progress – namely, the "NonSSN GPA Status Report" and the "Financial Aid Application Status Report". Training videos are available for staff to familiarize themselves with how to interpret these reports and what actions can occur to increase your overall numbers.

To calculate year to year growth, we use the following formula:

[prior year completion % - current year completion %] ÷ [prior year completion %] x 100

"Completion %" is defined as the number of completed financial aid applications that are matched to GPAs.

Schools with the highest growth of year to year “Completion %” are displayed on the Leaderboard, under the category "Most Improved". Schools must have a minimum of 50% completed financial aid applications that are matched to GPAs for the current year, to appear on the leaderboard. The calculations for growth % on the leaderboard dashboard have already been calculated for your convenience.

If using the Export file to analyze your data, you will look at the column labeled, "Cal_Grant_Completed" for the current year and the prior year and use the growth % formula that was described previously, to arrive at the growth % for your school.