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Okay, so 3-4 years ago, a family member used a credit card of mine without permission, and long story short, the credit card company wound up closing the account, and a 600$ debt went into collections. As soon as I found out about the debt (a few years ago), I paid the debt in full. My question: Do you think this totally sinks me for Grad-Plus loan eligibility? There's nothing else bad in my history. I've been making consistent payments on federal student loans for a few years. Co-signer is not an option.

You're fine. they just check to see if anything from the past two years is in active default when you apply.

That's reassuring

Go to studentloans.gov and apply for GradPlus. You don't have to be admitted anywhere yet. They will tell you within seconds if you're approved. You have to file your FAFSA first though.

HOPEFORCHANGE wrote:Go to studentloans.gov and apply for GradPlus. You don't have to be admitted anywhere yet. They will tell you within seconds if you're approved. You have to file your FAFSA first though.

So I wound up doing that for a school I was considering. I was approved, but now I'm stuck with this Plus Loan request on my account. And I'm kind of like, "uh oh?" Is submitting this request gonna bite me?

Why would it? It's good for 90 days and tons of people file FAFSAs before being admitted. I guess I don't understand what you mean.

I'm just wondering if having this loan request that I don't want on my account is going to have any negative repercussions. Probably no big deal here. Just glad it went through without any red flags.

Well, I hope not, because I haven't been admitted anywhere yet either. But think of it this way, it goes to the main financial aid office at whichever school. They don't know if you are applying for law school or to an English master's program...they just wonder who you are since you're not in their database of currently enrolled students.

Also, I don't think the Dept. of Education would have told me to do it if it looked overly presumptious to the school.

Also, all we basically did was run a credit check on ourselves for the school. Well, goodluck. I doubt there are negative repurcussions.

They should just let you do the credit check without submitting the application

That would make too much sense. I guess credit checks cost money, so that's why they want you to select a school - so not everyone who gets bored can cost them money by checking it out.

You know how a credit application in some cases is a small hit on your credit. Any chance of that happening here?

It's a hard inquiry. Too many hard inquiries can make your score go down, but I doubt this inquiry by itself would cause your credit score to go down