I’ve searched this in the forum and online and can’t find a consistent answer - hoping someone may be more expert here?
Should we answer every question on the CSS profile or only those questions that are required? We worry that not answering everything could annoy people in financial aid offices?
Or does it not matter, and only answer the required questions? Maybe the non-required questions are just in case people want to add supplements to explain their circumstances?
Which questions are you considering “non-required”? There are some questions everyone must have an answer to (eg AGI), which are marked “required.” There are other questions that you only answer if they are relevant to you (eg how long you have been at your current job).
I’m not sure that any questions that apply to you are “non-required” if they apply. (For instance, my husband wanted to leave off the whole section about retirement plans because it isn’t marked “required.” After looking into it, I became convinced of the interpretation I gave above: if we have retirement plans that section is required for us; it only doesn’t need to be filled out if we did not have them.)
Answer every question that applies to you.
Ok, thank you - I was just considering the ones not marked “required” as optional, but it makes sense to answer if they apply to our situation.
It sounds like not answering those questions would be viewed as withholding information? We don’t want to do that, just not sure how the process works.
Can you give us an example of an optional question that applies to you?
I want to note here that our questions come after being advised not to answer optional questions - their advice was from a perspective of time-saving while completing the profile, because the answers to these questions are on our tax document anyway. But also they said this from a perspective of less information is better because some schools may not include that specific piece of information on their formularies and so why offer it up?
Examples include basic stuff like SSN or more complex like “Do you have a Schedule 1”? Both of those pieces of information will be included with our tax document…
But I guess I wonder if it will annoy a financial aid office if we don’t take the time to input all the data points?
Again, not trying to be sneaky, just trying to clarify if this advice is good or bad…?
I don’t put my SSN on anything…if it’s optional.
But any other question that applies to you, I would answer. But that’s my opinion.