Let me get this straight. FAFSA is only available for US citizens and/or permanent residents (including political asylees and refugees). It can therefore be used whatsoever for LLM, SJD, JD as well as for any other Graduate Program in the country.

Regardless their immigration status (F1), international applicants {foreign lawyers} may not use FAFSA to cover their LLM expenses, but after some years of residence (whatever they decide to work or study after LLM) and of course, previous adjustment status; they may use FAFSA in the future for their JD or SJD program.

So, the question here comes to determine whether the FAFSA deadline- and for what matters the FAFSA application- may or may not affect your scholarship and grants eligibility. In fact, considering that there are several FAFSA deadlines (State and Federal deadlines), the question here is to know which is the best moment to apply for FAFSA? Which leave us two specific options:

1) Early in the year (between January 1st and March 15th) regardless of Tax returns, etc And this would be usually before the universities make a decision regarding the LLM application, or;
2) After an acceptation letter has been delivered to you (between March 15th and April 15th)

The problems here basically are:

- HLS Graduate Program often advises students to apply for financial aid (Federal FAFSA) after one has been admitted and, more important, after they have offered to you the FAP or financial aid package, which may include other kind of loans, grants, and scholarships. The problem is that you wont get such FAP until April 10 when some FAFSA deadlines have already expired.
- Yale Law School, on the other hand, asks you to submit your FAFSA application no later than March 15th, because otherwise; money may run quicklyMore info,seehttp://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Financial_Aid/0910HandbookRevisedpdf.pdf
- Last but no least, youre compelling not only to conceal two different policies regarding FAFSA (HLS v YLS), but you also need to be aware of the fact that in the Ivy league, FAFSA may decrease the financial aid available that the university can eventually offer to you.

If somebody have any advice on this regard, it would be more than welcomethanks in advance.

I've heard about it. Quite tricky question indeed. At the end of the day you will have to make a very difficult decision regarding which application process you must follow; which your chances are. Because, as a matter of fact, even if you don't know yet about your admittance, you cannot wait, and you certainly should not wait until last minute to submit your FAFSA application-especially when Yale gives you a deadline to do such thing.

I'll inquire a little bit more and I'll back to you soon. So far, I would recommend you to keep on track of HLS rather than YLS. The reason quite frankly, quantitative: more chances at HLS 150 places against 23 at YLS. This, ineluctably, considering that each place at HLS represents around 20 applications. By contrast, at YLS each place should represents almost the double. 1 place for each 50 applications

On the other hand, I do know some students whom I am study with who actually applied for FAFSA to cover their SJD, despite being from other countries- Of course, this after some years of residence. See you around. Max...

Hi guys, I am a U.S. citizen as well. I applied for FAFSA last month but i am not sure either how that affects the financial aid situation.