After some frustrating back and forth because I was given the same instructions from this thread in TWO emails, I had some success. My reply email with the fix is below, but I have no idea of what the problem actually was.
I already read the instructions because they were provided on the forum discussion linked below and the previous email I received. It gave me a button choice of whether or not the issue was resolved, and I clicked No because it wasn't. It's frustrating to receive these instructions for a third time when I've already said that they don't work.
However, I did think of something new to try. I've been signed onto my account since the first time that I tried doing this, so I decided to refresh the form completely by navigating back to it manually. This time it worked, and I got the message about pending validation.
*For readers on the board, I did this by going to the main menu > Products > Educational Access.