Few things bother me more than processes that aren’t transparent.

As a result, I try to do whatever I can to be honest and direct with my clients. I do not believe in hiding the truth from people - it only causes problems in the long run, even if it seems like a good idea or “the right thing to do” at the time. (Side note: if you haven’t read the book Lying, I highly recommend it. Life-changing!)

One college admissions-related issue where transparency is seriously lacking has to do with filling out the FAFSA, and whether families without financial need should fill it out anyway.

Around this time of year, every year, questions about this issue roll in nonstop. On one hand, colleges and school counselors seem to be insisting that the FAFSA is required for everyone, financial need or not… but many families report that their accountants have advised them that it’s not required, and that they shouldn’t fill it out.

I’m with the accountants. NO! Don’t fill it out if you don’t have financial need.

But my school counselor said to fill it out!

The long and short of it is that school counselors often-times encourage all families to fill out the FAFSA to make sure that no families accidentally bypass it because of a mistaken belief that they aren’t eligible.

While I agree in theory that it’s better to have a hundred ineligible families apply for no reason than to have one eligible family miss out on financial aid… I feel like the whole thing gets tricky when gentle “encouragement” turns into “bombarding families with scare tactics” about how their students will not be eligible for merit-based scholarships if their parents do not apply for financial aid.

And it’s not just counselors, it’s entire school systems and even STATES! Some states have actually begun to force all graduating public school students to complete the form!

As a result, many families truly believe that filling out the FAFSA is just another necessary step in the college application process and they fill it out without questioning anything.

Even though I am not a fan of spreading inaccurate information to scare people into doing something, I think the school counselors that perpetuate this myth have their hearts in the right place.

Moreover, based on the outright arguments I have seen on college admissions list-serves, I am pretty confident that a good number of these counselors actually do believe it’s required and just don’t know any better. Which is sort of concerning, to be honest, but I digress!

But the colleges said to fill it out too!

Colleges, in my opinion, aren’t perpetuating the idea that the FAFSA is required for the same reason as the counselors. Instead, they want the data! If more students fill out the FAFSA, that just means that the colleges and universities have more information to use in sophisticated mathematical models that influence admissions decisions and scholarships.

You can read more about how data is used in the admissions process in a New York Times article that I shared on social media this past fall. It was one of the best college admissions-related reads of last year, in my opinion! You can find it here - but I took the liberty of copying and pasting a selection below, as well:

If you pick any two freshmen at the same college, they are very likely to be paying completely different tuition rates. Those rates are based not on the true value of the service the college is offering or even on the ability of the student’s family to pay. Instead, they are based on a complex calculation, using sophisticated predictive algorithms, of what the student is worth to the college and what the college is worth to the student.
The consultants many colleges hire to perform those calculations — known in the trade as “financial-aid optimization” — are the hidden geniuses of enrollment management, the quants with advanced math degrees who spend hours behind closed doors, parsing student decision-making patterns, carefully adjusting their econometric models, calculating for admissions directors precisely how many dollars they would need to cut from their list price to persuade each specific Chloe or Josh to choose their college. Outside the ranks of enrollment management, the work done by the companies that employ these back-room prodigies is almost entirely unknown. But collectively, they play as big a role as anyone in shaping American college admissions today.

Of course they try to suggest that families have to fill out the FAFSA. Come on - those algorithms won’t run without data!

The Actual Truth

Colleges provide three different types of scholarships, or “free money", “grants,” etc:

Merit-based
Need-based
A combination of merit-and-need based

It is exceptionally, exceptionally rare for a school to require the FAFSA for a scholarship in the first category - one where financial need does not play a role in the selection process.

If you hear an admissions officer say that the FAFSA is required for scholarships, or if you read it on a college website, you need to delve deeper to determine if any of the schools on your list fall under one of those rare exceptions.

NOTE: Since many of my blog readers are Virginia residents, I want to point out that Virginia Tech is one of the schools that does show up on the exception list. Still, the reason for the exception won’t apply to 99% of the VT applicants with whom I work. Most of their “merit-based scholarships” do have a need-based component - which obviously requires the FAFSA - but some of their military scholarships require the FAFSA even though they don’t take financial need into consideration:

So, if you know that you will be applying for a military scholarship at VT: yes, you’re going to have to file the FAFSA regardless of need.

If there is any question whatsoever about whether a FAFSA might be required at a certain school for merit applicants without financial need, make sure to do your due diligence; after all, policies change. Give their financial aid office a call. Ask: “What kinds of scholarships require the FAFSA? Does your institution have a single scholarship that is merit-based only, with no financial need component whatsoever, that requires the FAFSA?”

Be warned: the person may very well tell you at first that merit-based scholarships do require the FAFSA at their institution. But once you start pressing about whether those “merit” scholarships incorporate financial need, you will learn that it is incredibly rare for a college to require the FAFSA for a scholarship that is truly based on merit alone.

Think about it - why would you need to share your financial information for a scholarship that has nothing to do with financial need? That would make no sense.

So why not just submit it anyway, just in case? Can that really hurt?

It sure can!