What I meant by saying you can only file CSS Profile once, was that you can’t file it once with just student’s info then turn around and try to file again with just grandparents’ info. You can’t have the bio dad do the noncustodial form for college X and have the mom file it for college Y. Even though you have to contact each school and see how they want things, ultimately they all have to be on the same page. I tried to allude to that in my emails and almost all the reps were super easy to deal with.
I got many varied answers when just calling and talking to whoever answered the phone, even if they went and asked somebody. I got the best and most consistent results by emailing the FinAid Director directly. Sometimes I had to scrounge around the website to find their contact info. But remember, if you just call, the person answering the phone may be a work-study student.
I had one college that wanted both bio parents to file the noncustodial form but CSS Profile will only accept one noncustodial form. When I told that school that all the other schools said not to file any noncustodial form, they said they would just accept whatever the other schools wanted.
When I submitted the Profile, it said almost all the schools wanted the noncustodial form. So I had to contact them all to find out which parent should file the form (bio parents are not together). That is when most of them just waived it. If different colleges had wanted a different bio parent to complete the noncustodial form, that would not have been possible.
I had one college tell me the student should NOT file FAFSA as independent, even though that is spelled out quite clearly. He referenced some obscure rulings and twisted things I had said. I was not able to convince him otherwise. Again, you can’t file the FAFSA twice, once as dependent, once as independent. I knew it was correct that she file FAFSA as independent and I was afraid that one FinAid Director might screw the whole works up by contesting our FAFSA, so we dropped that school from the list. Luckily it was not a big favorite although it would have been a good fit.
FWIW, this student does have contact with both bio parents and receives small amounts of support from each. I mentioned that when contacting FinAid in case that affected their decision but it didn’t seem to matter. I think five just waived the noncustodial form with hardly a thought, like that is just what they do when it’s a guardianship.
Agree with @sybbie719:
I re-emphasize, with sybbie, that the colleges can do whatever they want about the Profile, that’s why I heartily recommend making sure some FAFSA-only colleges are in the mix.