Dependency status for law school? Forum

[lsacqueen]

http://www.finaid.org/calculators/dependency.phtml
According to the above link, I would count as an independent because I'm pursuing a law/graduate degree. However, is this true of all law students? What if my family will be supporting me to a degree?

Then I calculated my EFC based on the assumption that my household is only me, and independent, with no kids. Going off that, and the fact that I have no income (just out of college with minimal assets), it said that my EFC would be 0. Is this accurate for law schools? Also, how much financial aid (in grants) could I expect from, say, the T10, given these numbers?

[09042014]

http://www.finaid.org/calculators/dependency.phtml
According to the above link, I would count as an independent because I'm pursuing a law/graduate degree. However, is this true of all law students? What if my family will be supporting me to a degree?

Then I calculated my EFC based on the assumption that my household is only me, and independent, with no kids. Going off that, and the fact that I have no income (just out of college with minimal assets), it said that my EFC would be 0. Is this accurate for law schools? Also, how much financial aid (in grants) could I expect from, say, the T10, given these numbers?

Yep, all grad students are independent for FAFSA. But schools require you to fill out a different form which gives info about your parents. The schools that actually give real grants will look at that parental information (for the most part). FAFSA won't have any effect on schools that actually give real aid.

And most schools don't give real aid for need. Because all law students quit their jobs and most are adults already. We are all equally needy. Why give out aid?

Yale, Harvard and Stanford all do. I've heard rumblings about NYU and Berkley, but I'm assuming they are flame.

I'd expect to get no real financial aid outside of merit based scholarships.

[lsacqueen]

http://www.finaid.org/calculators/dependency.phtml
According to the above link, I would count as an independent because I'm pursuing a law/graduate degree. However, is this true of all law students? What if my family will be supporting me to a degree?

Then I calculated my EFC based on the assumption that my household is only me, and independent, with no kids. Going off that, and the fact that I have no income (just out of college with minimal assets), it said that my EFC would be 0. Is this accurate for law schools? Also, how much financial aid (in grants) could I expect from, say, the T10, given these numbers?

Yep, all grad students are independent for FAFSA. But schools require you to fill out a different form which gives info about your parents. The schools that actually give real grants will look at that parental information (for the most part). FAFSA won't have any effect on schools that actually give real aid.

And most schools don't give real aid for need. Because all law students quit their jobs and most are adults already. We are all equally needy. Why give out aid?

Yale, Harvard and Stanford all do. I've heard rumblings about NYU and Berkley, but I'm assuming they are flame.

I'd expect to get no real financial aid outside of merit based scholarships.

Okay, thanks for clarifying. That makes sense that schools would rely mostly on their own form instead of FAFSA because most people are just as broke as me, but I really wish this weren't the case. I've heard rumors that HYS all provide significant need-based aid. Can anyone corroborate or deny this?
Also I'm heavily leaning towards NYU for its PI slant, location, etc, but am terrified of the COL. REALLY don't want to be 200k+ in debt. So why do you assume the rumors about N and Berk are flame?

[09042014]

http://www.finaid.org/calculators/dependency.phtml
According to the above link, I would count as an independent because I'm pursuing a law/graduate degree. However, is this true of all law students? What if my family will be supporting me to a degree?

Then I calculated my EFC based on the assumption that my household is only me, and independent, with no kids. Going off that, and the fact that I have no income (just out of college with minimal assets), it said that my EFC would be 0. Is this accurate for law schools? Also, how much financial aid (in grants) could I expect from, say, the T10, given these numbers?

Yep, all grad students are independent for FAFSA. But schools require you to fill out a different form which gives info about your parents. The schools that actually give real grants will look at that parental information (for the most part). FAFSA won't have any effect on schools that actually give real aid.

And most schools don't give real aid for need. Because all law students quit their jobs and most are adults already. We are all equally needy. Why give out aid?

Yale, Harvard and Stanford all do. I've heard rumblings about NYU and Berkley, but I'm assuming they are flame.

I'd expect to get no real financial aid outside of merit based scholarships.

Okay, thanks for clarifying. That makes sense that schools would rely mostly on their own form instead of FAFSA because most people are just as broke as me, but I really wish this weren't the case. I've heard rumors that HYS all provide significant need-based aid. Can anyone corroborate or deny this?
Also I'm heavily leaning towards NYU for its PI slant, location, etc, but am terrified of the COL. REALLY don't want to be 200k+ in debt. So why do you assume the rumors about N and Berk are flame?

Because, none of the other schools who don't have huge endowments do it. And California is broke as fuck. And NYU as a university is cheap as fuck, and gives terrible financial aid to UGs. I'd be shocked they were somehow the best at doing it for law schools.

And, last time I checked (Which was probably 3 years ago) there wasn't any evidence on law school numbers that either Berkley or NYU gave out financial aid for need.

I know NYU has a scholarship aimed at people who are poor but they still look at your merit stuff, and your family has to be broke as a joke generationly. http://www.law.nyu.edu/admissions/jdadm ... /index.htm

It's hard to tell what is really going on. But a lot of schools give "mixed need and merit" which really just means merit. Maybe they don't give them to trust fund kids, but they certainly aren't giving it to people who just barely got in.

The common wisdom is that schools use "need based" aid to make it rain on people with good numbers to get them to attend.

Don't count on getting any scholarships that aren't merit based.

[09042014]

And I'm 100% sure Northwestern doesn't care about need. They don't even ask for your parents information.