<p>At least one law school my son applied to said to complete only the student's portion of the FAFSA. Then on the institutional aid application, parent's income is required. For the FAFSA, does it matter if I claim my son as a dependent? I am guessing the FAFSA is so you can apply for a loan so it would not matter that my son is listed as a dependent on my tax return. If anyone has experience with this, I would appreciate your input.</p>
<p>Your son will be considered an independent student on the FAFSA because is is applying to graduate (professional) school. Your income and assets are not needed when he files for the fafsa. </p>
<p>However, unless your child is over 27 years old (30 at some schools) many schools will still ask for your income and assets when it disbursing need based financial aid.It does not matter if your child iss a dependent on your taxes.</p>
<p>Thanks, Sybbie. From your answer it appears I can still claim him as a dependent and FAFSA will consider him independent.</p>
<p>I also noticed some schools want the parent information for the fafsa too (at least I think they did). I guess the ones who don’t want parent info just ignore the part that they aren’t interested in if all the info gets sent to a school that only wants student info? Maybe I am wrong about that though. </p>
<p>Wow I finally got a handle on the fafsa, CSS profile for undergrad and now I am back at square one for figuring this stuff out. FAFSA for Grad students, and the need access…ugh.</p>
<p>Some schools will ask for the parent information on the FAFSA. </p>
<p>Some schools will just want the student to put their information on the FAFSA and then have the parents to put their financial information into Need Access or their own institutional form to disburse need based aid. </p>
<p>Some schools will only request the student information from the FAFSA.</p>
<p>So if some schools want parents info on FAFSA and some don’t am I correct that the schools that don’t want it will ignore it if it is included?</p>
<p>I believe that one of the reasons why some schools require parental information on the FAFSA is because the penalties for lying are so severe, including financial penalties and even jail time (as on many federal forms). The penalties are a powerful incentive to be truthful!</p>
<p>I don’t get what you are saying sallyawp. Why would that be a reason?</p>
<p>If a parent provides false information on the FAFSA, they can be subject to federal monetary penalties and jail time. That is quite an incentive for truthful reporting. Similar penalties do not apply to information reported directly to a law school. Therefore, one of the reasons that some law schools require parents to fill out the FAFSA, though it is not strictly required in order to receive graduate-level federal loans, is to provide an additional incentive to report honestly.</p>
<p>Oh, so that they can compare it to the information given directly to them if they provide their own aid outside of federal loans? I see. That makes sense.</p>
<p>Another FAFSA question - does son have FAFSA info sent to schools he has not yet heard from? Some have FAFSA deadlines but he does not know when he will be getting a decision from those schools - he is not yet under review!</p>
<p>^^i would say yes. My son got an email from one of the schools that has not admitted him yet stating that he should include them in his fafsa prior to admission.</p>
<p>I think it might be good to email the schools and ask them. Some we asked said send it regardless of admission status and some said not to bother if there isn’t an acceptance yet. Of course they might know that an acceptance isn’t coming and that is why they said that, so I would email and ask rather than go by what I say ;-)</p>
<p>So let me get this straight: parent info still should be on FAFSA even with child going to grad school? Even when FAFSA says she can skip parent info? It won’t hurt any financial aid she might qualify for at her grad school?</p>
<p>For what it is worth, here is what I have been told by some of the schools we checked with. Some want parent info and some don’t. The ones who don’t will ignore the info if it is included. If you child is just filling out the FAFSA for federal loans, the parent information is not necessary. If the school is using the FAFSA as a means of gathering financial information to use in determining institutional aid, they will be more likely to want the parents information and possibly the need access and the schools own application.</p>