In general, I would assume merit isn’t tied to need.
If it is, it’s not merit.
Schools have university funds (your regular merit) but then additional scholarships that might be endowed. I don’t think there is issue with filing a CSS if you want to. We didn’t qualify for anything but I still filed just in case. The time a CSS would impact is if someone had severe need and a school was need aware and wouldn’t want to provide a large grant. But that doesn’t sound like you. And if it was, you’d need to file anyway to afford that school.
I’d never know if American gave us just $15K because they saw me as someone who can afford that - but I highly doubt it - because with such a lower offer, they lost a potential customer.
Here’s an example of merit vs. needing aid or other requirements - UNH
They have regular university merit but then have the Hamel Scholarship which is endowed and required for a New Hampshire student.
Then they have this one - The David Ellsworth Davis New Hampshire Scholarship Fund recognizes a student whose families have resided in New Hampshire for at least three generations.
Then you have one like this - Angelica Rose Basso and Vincent Luti scholarship - which clearly has a need component: Undergraduate students who are studying a major in the College of Liberal Arts or the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture are eligible for this scholarship. Recipients are selected by Financial Aid.
Merit scholarships can be focused on several different things. We typically think of academic strength, leadership, etc as typical types, but there are also scholarships for other forms of top performing achievement/talent/interests- community service scholarships, some for the arts, some for certain demographics, etc. A family member of ours endowed a journalism scholarship at a highly regarded state university, so obviously that scholarship is targeted for a student majoring in journalism.
In some (several) cases a scholarship might say that priority is given to a student with financial need. IMO if you don’t complete the FAFSA or profile the school may then assume (probably rightly so) that you have no financial need. So it’s unlikely you are gaining anything by not submitting them.
And as has been mentioned, if some catastrophe befalls the family (heaven forbid) during your child’s years in college, schools can say they cannot assist you financially if they have no FAFSA/ profile form on file for you.
Yes, but if such a student gets a full ride (or a combination of scholarships adding up to a full ride) before sending in the FAFSA, they might not bother with the FAFSA unless the college requires them to file it. See under “Freshman Scholarships” at Scholarships | Tuskegee University to see a college’s reason for requiring FAFSA in such situations.
On some college websites, specific scholarships are listed. And if there is a need component, it usually states that under what is required for the scholarship.
Another way to know…if a scholarship requires submission of financial information, it likely has a need based component. For example, both of our kids applied for local outside scholarships that they did not receive because we had no financial need. Actually for some, kids didnt even apply because the scholarship committees required financial information.