<p>Basically I'm an English international student applying to Brown University. I'm attempting to complete my CSS Financial Aid Application, as well as my FAFSA Financial Aid application.</p>
<p>I've completed up to the section that asks for my Social Security Number, near the beginning. Except I'm english, and we don't have social security numbers.. we have national insurance numbers, which include alphabetical characters, whereas social security numbers do not - meaning I cannot use my national insurance number. </p>
<p>Well first, you need to understand that Brown has very little money for internationals and it’s unlikely to get much if any coming from a country that sends many full pay applicants.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that, as an international, you can’t use the FAFSA. It’s run by the federal government and I think it’s only available to US citizens.</p>
<p>You should take your questions about this process to the Financial Aid Forum. The folks there will be able to help you with CSS Profile.</p>
<p>You cannot file the FAFSA if you aren’t a US citizen, US legal permanent resident, or fall into a very narrowly defined group of other non-citizen, non-permanent residents (primarily people with refugee visas and the like).</p>
<p>If a form absolutely requires that you enter something for the SSN, even though you don’t have to be a person who has an SSN in order to complete that form, try 000-00-0000. That will often satisfy the program’s need for a number.</p>