Yes, it's fairly common - we've had to do it for the last two years. FAFSA rules state that a certain number of students have to go through the 'verification' process to be sure that the FAFSA was filled out accurately. I think it was originally designed to catch changes to income and other financial info that people forgot to report because the FAFSA has to be submitted weeks (or months) before taxes are due. Again, this is part of the FAFSA process that VT has to follow, not something unique to Tech.
Because of the changes to the FAFSA the verification worksheet now seems to be pretty much a 'cover sheet' to go along with the tax transcript should that be required, or a way to indicate to them that you're not filing returns and are providing the necessary info on the form itself. The lack of a straight answer is probably due to those changes, the form is very different this year.
