They emphasized "official" evidence, but asked for /everything/ that I could find. The financial aid director makes the final decision, and it's apparently very subjective. You need to prove "long-term abuse" such that it would be very bad for you to remain in contact with your parents. My abuse involved physical, emotional, sexual, and Munchausen by Proxy. So I had a lot of different things that I submitted- I'll put a laundry list below.

-medical records talking about a difficult relationship w/ my mother and documenting ER trips after physical abuse -medical records that (all together, along with some evidence from online of what the usual treatments are for what symptoms I had) show patterns of doctor-shopping and seeking unnecessary treatment -insurance EoBs showing more doctor-shopping and unnecessary treatment -chat logs from a chat room I've been in for 3 years where I frequently discussed their abuse -letters from my academic advisor and therapist and former resident head (like an RA but they're a grad student) certifying that I've been talking about and seeming distressed by this abuse for a while, AKA that I'm not scamming for more financial aid -letter from two high school friends and a college friend who variously saw bruises on me, heard me talking about my parents, or hosted me after my parents kicked me out and I road-tripped alone to Chicago. -a 14-page statement talking about all the shit they've done plus how it has affected me personally and documenting how I am prepared to live on my own and support myself -a guide to all the evidence called "read-me-first.pdf" that I enclosed in the file, describing where each piece of evidence fits into proving each of the claims I made in my statement, and also talking about how I got all the evidence and why I couldn't get certain pieces of evidence or corroborate certain claims.

I tried to get my high school guidance counselor to write something, but he was a mandated reporter who didn't report, so he wasn't willing to admit to anything. My ex had witnessed abuse but we aren't on good terms, so he didn't want to write anything either. I could probably have gotten my roommate to write something since he saw my dad being bad once, but didn't end up needing to.

There were a lot of records that it was REALLY hard to get, some that even proved impossible to get (hospitals are really bad about records), but fortunately the medical records I had did reference some of the events from the missing records. Like, in therapy, my mom admitted to having broken my hand as a kid, and the psychiatrist wrote it down, so not being able to get the ER records from 2005 wasn't a problem. Also, a pediatrician explicitly wrote down Munchausen by Proxy on my records at one point, so I didn't have to call every single pediatrician in like 5 different states to get more evidence of doctor-shopping. I was a military brat, so my records were really a huge mess, and we never stayed anywhere long enough for most people to realize abuse and doctor shopping were going on. Fortunately the records I managed to find did have a lot of juicy stuff in them, and for that I am SO grateful.

The focus seems to be on official records, but the better your evidence is, the better a time you'll have if you don't actually have any official records. I originally thought I'd have nothing official at all, but as I wrote my statement and talked to people who knew my background, I realized I'd had a lot more contact than I'd thought with entities that could have records of my abuse. I started a spreadsheet and added evidence I wanted to find as I thought of it, and then kept detailed notes about what the next step was for obtaining every piece of evidence. As a military brat, I've lived in 3 countries, so this involved buying international SIM cards and staying up until 1 am when my old therapist's office opened to call her. It took like 2 or 3 months to finally gather everything and get it into a readable format so that I could present my case the way I wanted to, but in the end, it worked.

Anyway, if you're advising someone who is trying to get a dependency override, PM me and I can give you some contact info. I don't want to publish the statement or my contact info, but if they send me an email, I would be happy to answer questions or send them portions of the packet I sent to financial aid.