<p>This is probably a silly question, but do colleges require a CSS profile if I am not applying for financial aid?</p>
<p>Colleges don’t require the CSS profile for non-financial aid students.</p>
<p>The one exception that I know of is a student who is not applying for need based aid, but does want to be considered for scholarships at school which offer scholarships.</p>
<p>^ Some schools do require it for merit aid.</p>
<p>yep - by “scholarships” I was thinking merit aid. That can also include music scholarships and other special interest “merit” like leadership, debate, etc.</p>
<p>And there are some schools that base merit aid on your financial aid status, even if you don’t expect to get financial aid. For me and my H, who both work full time and have decent jobs, we can afford to save money to send our kids to any college, but we are definitely not rich. Some schools reserve a special merit aid bucket for ‘not poor but definitely not rich’ to be able to woo students that they really want. (i.e. Boston U’s Dean Scholarship, 10K/year)</p>