school me on financial aid process...FAFSA Qs Forum

[ultrafl1ght]

Sorry for the dumb questions, but I am completely lost in the financial aid realm of law school. I am under the impression that I will not receive anything due to my parents income, but I am reading that I do not have to fill in my parents' information.

Does not filling out the FAFSA hurt chances towards admission? And I will most likely be filling it out without any of my parent's information so should I just leave all the responses where I do know the answer to blank?

Any help is appreciated, thank you.

[fatduck]

no. northwestern requires fafsa info in order to give any aid, though, as they combine merit+need aid into one offer. some other schools might do the same, i dunno. won't have any effect on admission, though.

[legalmo]

From what I've gleaned you can put your parents' information and cover their expected portion with loans. I think it was on Columbia's site I read that all parental information needed to be submitted for aid consideration (even in cases of divorce, etc.) to be fair to other families who complied. If they make so much that you'd get no aid then maybe they can alleviate some of the debt later. If not, I guess you'll have to go in to debt for your professional degree .

I might be wrong, don't quote me.

Edit: Also I'm fairly certain that not applying for aid does not hurt your chances of admission. I am sure that schools will not hesitate in sending you the whole bill (and expect you to pay it back).

[ultrafl1ght]

Thanks for the replies.