<p>I notice that you say your family cannot afford it. This is a serious obstacle.</p>
<p>Not all of the law schools on your list offer need based financial aid other than loans. Some of those which do give grants don’t offer such aid to foreign nationals. Why? </p>
<p>(1) Law schools assume you will borrow the maximum amount of student loans from the US federal government before you borrow $ or get loans from them. As a foreign national and non-green card holder, you are ineligible for those loans. That means a law school will have to give and/or loan you more money to attend than it has to loan an American citizen in the same financial circumstances–unless your own government or some other source will give you $ to study law in the US.</p>
<p>(2) A lot of international students come here, borrow money, get on a plane to go home and never repay the loans. Some nations make it virtually impossible to collect these debts. For this reason, some law schools prefer that you borrow the money to attend from banks in your own nation. </p>
<p>Some of the schools on your list use needaccess to assess need. You can see what questions you and your parents will have to answer here. [Need</a> Access - Home](<a href=“http://www.needaccess.org/home.aspx]Need”>http://www.needaccess.org/home.aspx)</p>
<p>Assuming you can stay in the US and work here is a mistake. There are employers who sponsor foreign attorneys to stay and work here. I am NOT an expert in this field, but my understanding is that they usually do that to get a lawyer who has expertise in the law of a foreign nation and, sometimes, who speaks an unusual language. That’s part of the reason LLMs are popular. The recipients are already attorneys in their home country and thus are useful in navigating foreign law. You will not have such expertise. That means that you will NOT be able to offer skills which lots of American lawyers don’t have. While I have no knowledge whatsoever about the subject and admit that, I am doubtful that any committee or subcommittee of the US House or Senate or an individual senator or representative is going to sponsor a foreign citizen to employ instead of hiring an American citizen for the position. </p>
<p>You should understand that immigration law in the US is in flux. There is a lot of sentiment to allow foreign nationals who receive advanced STEM --science, technology, engineering, and math–degrees in the US to stay and work here. With thousands of US attorneys out of work, there isn’t the same interest in keeping foreign nationals who come here to study law.</p>
<p>Nobody can tell you now what the immigration picture will look like 5 or more years from now when you finish law school. You may be able to stay–you may not.</p>
<p>I’m not saying “forget it.” I am saying that in your case, it’s NOT going to be just about gpa and LSAT. While they will determine where you get in, funding will be a major problem. You may want to email some schools now and find out (1) if they offer financial aid to foreign nationals and (2) whether they offer merit scholarships to foreign nationals.</p>
<p>Note that to get a student visa, you have to prove that you have enough money to get through at least one academic year in hand–whether it’s from a law school, a loan, personal earnings, your family. You can’t come here and then hope it all works out.</p>