You have arrived looking for DD Form 2788. Before you download, confirm this is the right document: Child Annuitant's School Certification. Full title: DD Form 2788, Child Annuitant's School Certification, 20150226 draft.
Then look at the edition date: not stated, publisher status not stated. After that, ask whether the form covers your situation. It almost certainly does regardless of your branch — DD forms run Department-wide rather than through a single service.
After that, turn to timing. The requirement comes from not stated; the form is maintained by not stated. Local implementing instructions fill in the dates, so check with the office that will receive your copy.
Before you download, pick your approach — editable file or printed page. What follows covers the formats first, then the entries, then what you do afterward.
Begin at the top and move down. Enter your identifying data first, then the body of the form, then the signature block. The sequence is printed in that order because entries below frequently follow from entries above.
Before your first entry, look at the corner of the page and compare the printed date with not stated. If they do not match, stop and download again. Old copies circulate in shared drives for years, and a DD form is revised centrally for every service at once, so a superseded blank may not carry the fields your reviewer expects.
Take the fields in order and answer all of them. Mark inapplicable items N/A instead of leaving white space. When you reach a date, copy the format shown on the form, since a reviewer reading a different convention may misread your entry entirely.
Do not skip past the Privacy Act Statement. It is placed ahead of the personal data fields on purpose: it explains under what authority you are being asked, what happens to the information, and what follows if you decline. Take the minute it costs.
Sign last, and sign properly. On paper that means ink in the signature block. Electronically it means a digital signature, usually applied with your Common Access Card in a reader that supports it. Typing your name into the field does not sign anything. Then add the date beside your signature — an unsigned or undated form is the most common reason one comes back.
Run a final pass over the form. The errors that send it back are the same ones every time: old edition, gaps in required fields, unreadable handwriting on a scan, non-conforming dates, no signature or no date.
Look up an unclear item on the form face before anywhere else, then in not stated. Should the two texts conflict, the directive is the one you follow.
Download the form
First, look at what you can download. The set covers PDF, the form runs 2 pages, and you will complete roughly 42 fields.
Choose pdf as your default. Next, click inside a box. A fillable pdf responds by outlining the field and letting you type; the text stays in the document when you save it. A printable pdf does not respond, which tells you to print the page and complete it by hand.
Go with the typed route whenever the choice is yours. Consider what happens after you submit: the copy gets scanned, forwarded and filed, and each pass costs handwriting some legibility. Block letters help if you are stuck with a pen.
All of it downloads free. When you are ready to work, do this: save the file locally, then open it in a full pdf application. Browsers often ignore field properties, and you can lose everything you typed.
What the form asks for
- 1. Member's social security number.
- 2. Member's name: last, first, middle initial.
- 3. Annuitant's social security number.
- 4. Annuitant's name: last, first, middle initial.
- 5. If under age of majority, name of legal representative.
- 6. Date of Birth: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 7. Are you married? Press space bar to mark X in first box if yes, second if no.
- 8. Are you currently attending school full time? X first box if yes, second if no.
- 10. If high school, expected date of completion: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 11.a. If other than high school, date term or semester began: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 11.b. Date term or semester ends:s 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day, go to item 15.
- 9.a. Name of school.
- 9.b. School address, include zip code.
- 9.c. Telephone number of school. Include area code.
- 14.a. If other than high school, date term or semester began: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 14.b. Date term or semester ended: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 12. If not currently attending school full time: a. name of last school attended.
- 12.c. Telephone number, include area code.
- 12.b. Address, include zip code.
- 13. If high school, date of completion: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 15. Do you plan to attend school full time during the next 150 days? X first box if yes, second if no.
- 17.a. Date term or semester will begin: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 17.b. Date term or semester will end: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 18. Signature of annuitant or legal representative. Remember to obtain school official's certification on Page 2.
Now that it is complete, send it where not stated or your local procedure says it goes. Before you do, make yourself a copy — scan it or save the file elsewhere. It costs you nothing and saves you the whole exercise if the original goes missing.
When DD Form 2788 references another form, search on the series and number. Because DD numbers are common to every military department, the number by itself identifies exactly one document.
Be careful when a procedure pairs this form with a service form. Read the prefix, not just the digits. Service forms answer to a service proponent, while DD forms answer to not stated or an equivalent Department office, and the two sequences were never aligned. Grabbing the wrong prefix gets you a form that has nothing to do with your task.
Do not archive this file and reuse it in a year. Forms are reissued as directives are revised, as data requirements shift, and as statutory notice text is amended. Your protection is simple: download fresh each time and confirm the edition date.
Finally, understand the limits of what you have read. This page distributes a published Department of Defense form and describes how to fill it out. It does not give legal or procedural advice, and it cannot promise any outcome for your particular case. For that, contact not stated, your administrative office, or the authority identified in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 2788?
- DD Form 2788, Child Annuitant's School Certification, 20150226 draft
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?