It used to be the case that FAFSA showed the list of colleges to all of the colleges listed on it. But that was changed recently.
That was a concern because colleges that used “level of applicant’s interest” used the order of colleges listed on the FAFSA to make assumptions about the applicant’s preference order. A college that believed that it was a low choice may have chosen to waitlist or reject an applicant in order to increase its yield numbers. Some who knew about this would send FAFSA with one college at a time, at least for colleges using “level of applicant’s interest”, in order not to reveal their other colleges. But that is no longer necessary.
Some colleges have a supplemental question asking applicants what other colleges they applied to. Again, this is often a “level of applicant’s interest” question. If the applicant is “overqualified” and is also applying to more selective (but realistic) colleges*, the college may believe that it is being used as a low choice “safety” and choose to waitlist or reject the applicant in order to increase its yield numbers.
*For example, an “overqualified” applicant to American University also applying to George Washington University and Georgetown University.
If you have financial need, that can be a reason a student is rejected,
but then, if you actually have financial need, there are plenty of schools that will offer aid. Use NPC for rough estimate.
I don’t know if CSS info on list of colleges, is given to Admissions, but maybe.
Mainly, the problem with the CSS is with colleges that use financial need to reject candidates.
They do this because they have a budget for financial aid, especially smaller schools, that they cannot
bust, so some schools, that are not need blind, can and do reject candidates that they believe have financial need.
Yield is another factor in admissions. So colleges attempt to guess a candidates interest.
That matters at some medium sized schools like Rice University, and a student can open emails from Rice
to show interest, ask their admissions counselor one question via email, take an optional interview,
and visit campus if finances allow for that.
Applying early, like more than a month before the deadlines also shows interest. Rice gets a lot of applications on December 30, and that does NOT show interest. The date stamp, I bet that is looked at, but don’t know for sure.
I don’t see any college admissions officer taking the time to look at other colleges a student applied to and making guesses about interest so much. Also, students apply to reach colleges in droves today, so how would the admissions officers rank that?
Colleges care about financial aid budgets and they care about yield, though.