I’m in the ‘better safe than sorry’ group. For DD#1, her school wanted a FAFSA for her merit aid so I just filled it out. Well, one day an alum scholarship just appeared on her financial aid page. We never applied for it or really even knew about it, it just appeared on her FA page with the Stafford loans. The website clearly says that the FAFSA is require for this type of scholarship so if fafsa wasn’t on file, she wouldn’t have received the award. It was only $2k, but every little bit helps.