I could potentially be wrong on that, but we submitted the CSS Profiles anyhow to all schools that required it for financial aid. Suppose there’s an outside change for some small amount of need based aid as well, so didn’t want to give that up entirely.
This thread seemed to indicate that CSS Profile is at least required at some schools in order to receive merit aid
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1804309-merit-scholarships-and-fafsa-and-css-profile-p1.html
Very curious on further input on my original question.