Given the amount of data mining and enrollment management that schools are doing with big data, the FAFSA order should be the least of your concerns.
The Washington Monthly talked about FAFSA ordering in a recent article on college admissions:
"The order that you list colleges on the FAFSA may come back to haunt you.
Even if a student is lucky and only has to fill out the FAFSA to get financial aid, he should be wary about the order in which he lists the colleges where he’d like to send the application. According to a recent article in Inside Higher Ed, “Some colleges are denying admissions and perhaps reducing financial aid to students based on a single, non-financial, non-academic question that students submit to the federal government on their [FAFSA].” It turns out that colleges see exactly the order the student listed the schools on the FAFSA and have become savvy at admitting, wait-listing, and packaging aid depending on the student’s ordering."
Choices, choices, foolbar. One can submit to one school at a time if they choose to do so. If they do that, the one school will not see any other schools on the FAFSA…none.
For a handful of schools, if one is that concerned, then go for it.
There is a poster on this forum who did this for 20 some schools,mand felt that it was a good strategy.
Personally, I think this ordering on the FAFSA issue applies to a small number of places. Need blind schools do not even know whether the kid needs aid, Nevermind what other schools are listed on the FAFSA. And the vast majority of colleges are need blind. The financial aid department does not have the time or manpower to contact admissions for every applicant and tell them the order of schools on the FAFSA and Profile. The financial aid department has enough on its plate trying to craft financial aid awards.
Like I said…one can always submit the FAFSA…and Profile…one school at a time. That solves the problem.
Or as Sybbie said…just don’t apply for aid at all. Problem solved.
31 is nuts.
It suggests an issue with reasonable judgment. And one of the factors top holistics look for is judgment.
I think the main reason adcom may require access to finaid data is to see how much need the student has so they can either reject or offer “scientifically” determined amount of merit aid. It is not difficult to provide access to some summary version of applicant’s financials and list of other schools if desired. Nobody needs to talk to anyone.
31 schools is a joke. Let me guess - top 25 from USNWR National Universities, top 5 LACs and #1 Regional University 
Your colleges will only see the schools on the same FAFSA filing that they share. They won’t see all 31 schools. If you do three FAfSA runs, which you need to do, with that many schools, you can put 7-8 on each filing and the schools would be no wiser.
You are really going to have a lot of trouble coordinating those filings and the updates when needed, however. There is a way to do this with multiple FAFSA filings, but you have to get the directions and follow carefully. But then when you apply to that many schools, there will be a lot of PIN issues (and I don’t mean passwords) in meeting requests, demands and fixing mix ups that inevitably occur in the college app process. It’s the reason why applying to too many schools becomes a juggling issues, and the more one has to juggle, the easier to miss a catch and the greater the chances that those pins come tumbling down on your head. It’s inevitable, IMO.
Most schools are need blind and won’t care if you applied for financial aid. I say this even though I have a lot of cynicism about how honest and upfront these schools are in terms of giving out info on their processes.
@CCDD14 “Let me guess - top 25 from USNWR National Universities, top 5 LACs and #1 Regional University.” Spot on. 
@cptofthehouse I clearly remember reading that FAFSA sends an update to colleges when you send out a new report, but perhaps I’m mistaken.
Send a PM to Kelsmom and ask her. She would know.
Baloney. The only thing the FAFSA submits to any college is what YOU submit on that FAFSA form. So if you only have Yale on the submitted FAFSA…Yale will never see any other colleges to which you submit. The FAFSA doesn’t go in and find all gazzilion of your submissions and forward them to Yale…if Yale is the ONLY school on your FAFSA form.
What you are posting is…well…baloney.
Would have told my kids to focus on their academics, not 31 colleges. And now you’re angry about whether or not you left a trail of breadcrumbs. You will land somewhere.
But next time you decide you can up your chances with some approach, try to vet the approach first. HS research and time abroad won’t overcome the Bs for the tippy top schools. Sorry but a lot of this sounds like twisting yourself into a pretzel.
And for the record…a good chunk of the 31 schools require the Profile. Are you thinking maybe the College Biard might also send all of your 31 colleges to each place too? Not likely.
I would be more worried about the breadcrumbs you are leaving on this forum.
I have already emailed a link to this thread to the admissions offices of the top 25 schools from UNSWR. Their attorneys should be serving a subpoena to CollegeConfidential for your IP address right now and it shouldn’t too much longer before they hunt you down. That sound you hear outside is the footfalls of the College Board SWAT team rappelling onto your roof. I’d tell you to run, but to be honest they probably have your home surrounded at this point.
Some years ago, i knew a young woman who applied to close to 30 schools; also knew a young man who did the same though for him, it was due to his desire for a dual BA/MD program that required two apps much of the time. The young woman got into choice #21 which she would not have applied to had she kept here choices at say 12 schools, and it was a reach school as most all of them were. She had a lot of support and record keeping from her mother in this endeavor, and the fin aid was a lot of trouble. Didn’t get much, but didn’t qualify for much anyways. She did better than she would have done, had she picked 8 reach schools, two match schools and two safeties as she was advised to do. She picked 28 reach schools and one safety I believe and got into 10 schools, none that she would have picked as her top 8 reaches, and it was important to her to get into a reach (highly selective, highly rated) college. My neighbor’s girls have done the same approach and gotten into schools that would not have made the cut at 10 choices, but still selective. They applied to about 20 schools.