Do somebody know, if I have to specify my parents income and assets in a financal aid application?
I'm already 27 and independent.

No. You will be considered independent for financial aid purposes, and only your income and assets will be looked at.

That's not necessarily true. For several law school, even if you're totally independent, you have to include your parent's financial situation if you want to be considered for financial aid.

Not if you are 27 years old.

Really? Please can you explain what is the threshold? I am 26 years old, am I excluded from this? :(

Answer these questions to determine if you are a dependent student (parents assets must be considered) or independent student (parents assets not considered) for student financial purposes.

http://www.finaid.org/calculators/dependency.phtml

Thanks a lot richardvf! That's very useful, I will use thir reference when applying for financial aid to the schools in case of acceptance. It seems that the margin for being independent is even lower, i.e. when one turns 24. I
However, I am doubtful that this applies for every school. The fin. aid applications I had to fill out already (for Berkeley and Harvard, which already requested it as part of the application) asked me specifically to fill out the information on the parental income, regardless of my position of dependance/independence. I interpreted this as if they do not care for your age, they really want to know this for completeness purpose.
Some other schools, fortunately, didn't ask for any info about my parents' income and assets. Finally, some othwers just asked me to specify if I intend to apply for fin.aid and will come back with further questions in case I will be accepted. I guess for this last scenario I will be able to make my case that I am independent, now that I know this link...Thanks a bunch once again!