Many schools have rolling admission. FAFSA isn’t even available to be filed before the admission decision is made. Back in the dark ages (2014) my kids were both accepted long before 1/1/14, the date when you COULD file FAFSA.
For the list of 10 or so states (on other thread) that ‘require’ FAFSA for hs graduation, there have to be a million exceptions. Not all hs grads can file FAFSA (undocumented, exchange student, convicted of drug crimes, etc), are not going to college, entering the military first. I remember there was a big to-do about it in Illinois and Illinois dropped the requirement. It wasn’t the low income kids who didn’t want to fill it out, it was the upper income parents.
Are the states really not going to issue a hs diploma because Elon Musk refuses to fill out the FAFSA for one of his many kids?