I wish to pursue an LLM in the U.S. If necessary, I would be able to obtain enough money to complete my studies. Nonetheless, it would still put me into debt and is far from the ideal scenario. Several financial aid applications I have filled ask how much money would I be able to obtain on my own in order to pay for my year in the U.S.

Do law schools want to know what is the amount you would be able to obtain without going into debt or do they mean by any means possible?

Is it more likely that a candidate will get financial aid if he/she is just missing the amount that would be awarded as financial aid or do schools tend to give financial aid to those that lack the most money?

Thank you for your replies.

Each school has their own rules. Be prepared to pay all of your own tuition in case you receive no financial aid. Some schools offer NO financial aid to students. Others have either merit based (your academic record) or need based (how poor you are).

In my experience some schools won't help at all unless you have some money but your experience may vary. Keep in mind that about the best you can hope to receive is maybe 50% support of tuition. You still need to be able to show funds for the rest of the tuition PLUS all your living expenses, books, etc. to get your visa to the US.

You may be able to apply for a grant as well in your own country or a Fulbright Scholarship but make sure you understand all the rules regarding these such as returning to your home country for a certain period of time after your education. This might impact your ability to try and get work in the US if that is important to you.

Tell the truth about how much money you have. If you have savings or property just be honest with the financial aid office. You don't want to be signing documents that you can't back up.

Now, regarding the amount of the scholarship, it all depends on the priorities of the University and their donors. Let me give you an example, Columbia's donors place a high weight on the type of law practiced by the applicant. They give their scholarships to people working in human rights, public interest law, etc. which I think it's awesome. That University will almost never grant substantial financial aid to a corporate lawyer, specially is he/she comes from a developed country. Other very renowned universities (Yale, Harvard) do this because they don't need to show great stats, they are already very prestigious.

On the other hand you have universities that will give financial aid to anyone, regardless of their income, type of practice or country of origin, potential to make an impact, only to improve their stats. These are merit-based scholarships. They look for people with good numbers: top 1% of the class, cum laudes, academic awards, etc. In this group you can find UPenn, Duke, Cornell and NYU.

Thank you for your reply. Don't worry, of course I will tell the truth about how much money I have, but when they ask how much money I would be ABLE to contibute towards my education for the year, I believe it is not very clear if they mean money that you actually have or money that you could POTENTIALLY obtain through loans or other financing (in my case, I could obtain a bunch of loans that would cover my expenses, but I would be in financial stress when I come back to Mexico).

I didn't know about the different focuses law schools take regarding financial aid, thanks for the information, it's very useful.

I understand your concern. Just say what you would actually be able to contribute without the loans. I just said what I actually had in the bank, which was like $ 5.000. Now, you would think that this would deter them from admitting you (because you can't pay) or from giving you financial aid (because you would need a lot of money). But it really doesn't work that way and if you are a good catch they will welcome you. It worked for me and I got into great schools and got great scholarships.

Later in the application generally they ask you if you have other sources of potential financial aid and there you can mention the loans.