My D, college junior, applied for Capital One student credit card. I thought everyone gets approved. Is there anything she can do to get it unrejected?
@Iglooo Same thing happened to my son. I got a secured card, held it for 6 mos then applied for a student discover and he was approved.
@partyof5 – what is a secured card? I figure I may as well save a step if you have been through this already. I have a card in my son’s name linked to my CC, but I don’t believe that creates credit history for him.
With my bank (USAA), you can get a secured card by depositing between $250 and $5000 in a two-year certificate of deposit which is the security for the card. The amount of the cd determines the credit limit. You earn interest while building credit. I had researched this when my son started graduate school across the country and had no credit in his name. Because we were in a hurry to get him moved, I ended up just adding him to my card. This thread is a good reminder that we still should do this.
S shared a credit card (we used Juniper back then) and a checking account with me
beginning in HS and onward until he married.
His score was a refection of my own. He was so proud! I watched carefully ( with D the same) both messed up one time but learned a lot and have super credit ratings. His pride was sweet and amusing as no way on his own would he have kept things straight.
Perhaps doing joint in the beginning would be helpful to make sure all is going as it should…
But then
maybe you have already, I cannot tell from your post.
^^^Same for my kids. I put them on my CC and my credit rating transferred to them. When D1 graduated from college, with a job, she was able to get 20K credit on her CC. There is no need for your student to build up credit if you have good credit.
I thought I’d read recently somewhere that adding a child to your account did not help build their credit. But that could be wrong. A secured card is ok, but adding them to yours is easier.
My D is already on my credit card, has been since she turned 16. I don’t think it helped. Now that she is making money tiny amount she wants to pay her own bill with her own credit card.
@Iglooo With a secured card you put down a deposit and that in effect is your credit limit. For my son, I got a PNC Bank secured card. They dont really advertise them, but I went in the branch and asked, and they gave me an application. With my daughter, I just googled secured credit cards, and applied to one, I dont remember the name. With each of them, I would charge small amounts and pay it off, after six months, I applied for discover cards and they were both approved.
Regarding adding your kids to your account, it does help. In effect, it helps with the credit score, but it will not automatically make them eligible for their own first card. For example, with my oldest, I added him to a store cc at age 17, applied for a gas card, he was denied. So we opened the secured card, held for 6 mos, then he was approved for a discover with only a $500 limit. My second, I added her to my visa when she was 16. Same deal, got a secured card when she graduated from hs, held for 6 months, then applied for a student discover. She was approved for $1500 limit. I think the difference was, she was added to a visa at an earlier age, and he was only added to a store cc.
For those who say their kids were approved on their own, they probably had a decent income. The process I detailed works great, when you have a student with no discernible income as a college student.
Remember when you get the secured card, you must use it. I put small purchases on it, and immediately paid it back. Dont close the card before you open the new visa, mc, etc.
I just googled building credit history with credit card. Most of the info was old (2010-2012) but credit karma was 2014. From what I read, it is possible to build credit history as an authorized user but you have to make sure that your bank is reporting the info to the credit bureaus. I think I will call my bank to see which is the best for building history: authorized user, joint account, or secured card.
Autorized user or joint accomplish the same thing. They will help your child in the long run. There are several factors to builing a credit score, one being length of credit. Solely adding them to your card, will help their credit score, but wont necessarily help them get approved if they are college student without steady income. The secured card method works every time.
I would also suggest, opening an account on creditkarma. It is an excellent site for you to monitor your credit for free.
I never really understood what the rush is getting a credit card while still in college with no job and no income. If student does get a credit card in college isn’t there too much of a risk of borrowed money not being paid back timely and credit history getting dinged before even getting out of college and getting first grown-up job. Maybe just use a debit card while in college. and get credit card after graduating and getting a job.
I wanted my kids to learn how to use credit responsibly while they were in college, so if they messed up, there was time to recover without their credit being messed up too much. Also, its good for the first apartment, utilities, etc. I dont want to have to still cosign for those things when they graduate. Why not establish credit in their own names, so they can get a car, apt, etc without your help. Fortunately my kids all have cars, but they will need apartments etc.
He only had a 500 limit, so there wasnt a whole lot of debt he could amass with such a small limit.
Now my daughter has a higher limit, but I havent given her the card yet. I will get the limit dropped to $500, then give her the card.
I limit high enough to pay for an airline ticket is, IMO, helpful.
My credit union offers a Credit builder Mastercard that is tied to my Credit union accounts. There is a limit of $500 and the student needs to have a savings and ATM account. I have access to the account and I am able to make payments to their account as needed. They build the credit history and I can control their expenditures. They usually use it for books and school supplies which I would be paying for in the first place.
My S has been going through this. He’s put off getting a card as long as he can and I’m glad he did, but now he needs to build credit. He’s been an authorized user on one of my accounts for 10 years and that has not given him any credit history at all. So as someone has said, if you are counting on building credit for your child that way, make sure that reports are being made to the credit bureaus. The card shows up for him, but no credit score.
But really…if your kiddo has a credit card attached to your account…what would be the necessity to get one in their own name before they have a job with sufficient income to get approved (which is not a lot…but is likely more than the OPs kiddo is earning as a full time student).
Just wait. When the kiddo graduates from college and gets a job, he or she will more easily be able to get a credit card in his or her own name.
My daughter was first reject by PenFed credit card, but she applied to Bank of America student card and was accepted and I believe she got $700 credit line.
My D was rejected by Capital One but was able to get a student Visa from Wells Fargo. Check with his checking account bank. They may offer a low limit card to account holders.
If you have your kids as additional card holders on your account, it definitely helps their credit. But it seems to depend upon the credit card, as some accounts are showing up on their credit report, and others aren’t. They keep getting credit card offers in the mail. What cracks us up, is that my oldest son keeps getting offers to refinance his mortgage, and invitations to attend wealth management seminars. One offer even talked about his mortgage that he’d had for the last sixteen years (apparently he was eight when he got it). When I look at his credit report, it appears that since he was a child, he has had millions of dollars worth of credit (we’ve done a number of refinances, so some of that shows up on his report).