<p>OK, so I know that I should first worry about getting into med school (which is still several years away), but I keep having these recurring thoughts about a bad credit score preventing me from getting loans. Just after I turned eighteen, my parents grew tired of having to give me gas money so they just gave me a credit card that they paid for. But, after several months, I started using the card irresponsibly and my limit had to be raised several times. After a few months of this, my parents and I decided to close the account. It’s also important to note that the balance on my credit card was paid in full and on time, by my parents (although my name was on the card, they were the ones paying the credit card bill).</p>
<p>I’ve heard in the past it hasn’t been too difficult for med students to get loans, but with the credit crunch in the past year or two, I’ve heard whispers about people getting accepted into med school, but not being able to get loans to actually go to medical school. Can anybody who has been through the process of getting loans for medical school give me any advice or possibly point me to some help (either to ease my paranoia or to start to repair my credit)?</p>
<p>I do realize that in 2 or 3 years, I may not be headed to medical school, but I find that it is pretty hard to convince myself that I will not be headed to professional or graduate school within a year after graduation, so this discussion is still tangentially related to what I’ll probably end up doing if not medical school.</p>
<p>The basic idea is that as long as you don’t have major problems on your credit report (>90 days late, defaults, bankrupcies, etc), you will be able to get federally guaranteed loans for the entire cost of medical school. I really doubt those loans will be going anywhere, and you will get them.</p>
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<p>If your name was on the card, then the on time payments will be on your credit report.</p>
<p>Yeah, but raising the limit is not. I assume that raising the limit on your credit card is a less bad offense than not paying your credit card bill though…I’m just trying to figure out where I stand for getting loans for med/grad school, because if I need to do damage control on my credit, now is the time to start, rather than down the road if I get into the school of my dreams and then I find out that I can’t get enough loans to attend the school. To me, that seems much worse than getting rejected from my dream school, whatever that may be.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that medical students are entitled to much more federal money than any other professional/grad school population. The posted limits on Staffords does not apply to med students I believe the limit for med students is around $240k at the moment. Don’t quote me on that, but it’s significantly more than what other students get, and I remember thinking that even if I was paying OOS tuition I’d be okay. </p>
<p>And besides, you’ll always be able to get the loans to START. You won’t hit the caps until third or fourth year and at that point, it’s likely some private lender somewhere would recognize that you’re in a position that makes you likely a safer bet to repay down the line. You might get reamed on interest rate, but the money will be there for you to finish.</p>
<p>Yes, that was my point. It would help establish your credit history.</p>
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<p>Actually, rasing your limit is a good thing, at least for your FICO scores (which don’t mean anything for getting federal loans). This is because a decent portion of your FICO score is based on your utilization % (the balance you cary vs. your overal limit) - higher limit with little to no month-to-month utilization equals higher FICO score.</p>
<p>And paying in full doesn’t look any different on your credit report than making the minimum payment (which just states whether an account is current and in good standing or not). Obviously, however, it does lower your utilization more, which leads to a higher FICO, so thats good.</p>
<p>get a credit report from one of the three companies and you’ll see if you’ve had any delinquencies but from your story it sounds like you have good credit since your parents were paying the card off on time every month. </p>
<p>having your limit raised is actually a good thing. asking for your limit to be raised and being denied is a bad thing.</p>
<p>Really? I thought having your credit limit raised meant that since you would be using your card a lot, therefore you are being irresponsible with it, and this would lower your credit score (if that makes sense). So what you guys are saying is that since I had no trouble getting my limit raised when I needed it raised, that this indicates that I should have good enough credit to be able to get loans when the time comes?</p>
<p>Thats not what it means, although if you have a good payment history and are constantly running into your credit limit, the card issuer will almost certainly raise your limit in the hopes of getting more finance charges out of you. But credit line increases are more typically granted after holding a card for a certain period of time with good payment history, or because you ask for it, or any number of other reasons.</p>
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<p>No, we’re saying that because it sounds like you don’t have any of the disqualifying marks on your credit, you will be able to get the loans (assuming no disqualifying marks between now and then).</p>
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<p>Only if the credit card company does a “hard pull” of your credit (which they often will not), and thats only a bad thing if you have a lot of hard pulls in a short period of time (e.g. applying to a lot of credit cards at once, etc.).</p>