Credit building for grad applicants without loan co-signers
Hello everyone.
It's not time for me to apply to graduate school yet (that will come in '09), but it's certainly been on my mind lately. My post might come across as different from the other subject matter in here, but bear with me for a moment.
I'm a fairly good student at my university, in terms of performance. As of right now, I have a B+ average, and I anticipate an increase by the time I graduate. Unfortunately, the first year of my college career was spent at another school, and I did extremely poorly there. When I apply to these grad programs, I don't look forward to the many explanations I have to give, but it's part of my past, and I have to own up to it.
Because of those few black marks in my academic record, I don't expect to be in the cream of the crop when it comes to applicants. I know that's who usually gets the funding and the best assistantship packages, and it does worry me. I'm wondering how I can compensate for my lack of monetary awards with loans. The confusion and uncertainty lies in the fact that I have an almost nonexistent credit history. I've got three credit cards (one of which is paid off), so I'd say I've got a good record. But there have been a couple of times when I needed to apply for a loan, and I was told that I have an insufficient credit history.
And I don't see that status changing in the next couple of years.
I've been told that I can fix problems like "insufficient credit history" by getting a co-signer, but I don't believe that I will have anyone to sign on a loan with me, considering my mother has no interest in my grad school plans and has never wanted to co-sign for me. She fears that she will incur the consequences of my supposed financial negligence (I assure you though, I'd never let my loan payments get to that point). Besides my single parent, there's no one else I can turn to in this situation. I don't know how to get to the point where I'll be a young adult in her early 20s with the ability to walk into a bank and get a loan on her own.
I reach out to you graduate students/applicants in hopes that you'll have some advice or some anecdotes for me. To give you an idea of what I'm searching for--
How can I work on building my credit history in hopes of getting loans for graduate school? To those of you who didn't get a lot of funding from your programs-- are you having difficulty financing your graduate education, or is it coming easy for you? Should I be more optimistic about other forms of funding from graduate programs? (If so, please explain)
Any other relevant advice would be great. :)
It's not time for me to apply to graduate school yet (that will come in '09), but it's certainly been on my mind lately. My post might come across as different from the other subject matter in here, but bear with me for a moment.
I'm a fairly good student at my university, in terms of performance. As of right now, I have a B+ average, and I anticipate an increase by the time I graduate. Unfortunately, the first year of my college career was spent at another school, and I did extremely poorly there. When I apply to these grad programs, I don't look forward to the many explanations I have to give, but it's part of my past, and I have to own up to it.
Because of those few black marks in my academic record, I don't expect to be in the cream of the crop when it comes to applicants. I know that's who usually gets the funding and the best assistantship packages, and it does worry me. I'm wondering how I can compensate for my lack of monetary awards with loans. The confusion and uncertainty lies in the fact that I have an almost nonexistent credit history. I've got three credit cards (one of which is paid off), so I'd say I've got a good record. But there have been a couple of times when I needed to apply for a loan, and I was told that I have an insufficient credit history.
And I don't see that status changing in the next couple of years.
I've been told that I can fix problems like "insufficient credit history" by getting a co-signer, but I don't believe that I will have anyone to sign on a loan with me, considering my mother has no interest in my grad school plans and has never wanted to co-sign for me. She fears that she will incur the consequences of my supposed financial negligence (I assure you though, I'd never let my loan payments get to that point). Besides my single parent, there's no one else I can turn to in this situation. I don't know how to get to the point where I'll be a young adult in her early 20s with the ability to walk into a bank and get a loan on her own.
I reach out to you graduate students/applicants in hopes that you'll have some advice or some anecdotes for me. To give you an idea of what I'm searching for--
How can I work on building my credit history in hopes of getting loans for graduate school? To those of you who didn't get a lot of funding from your programs-- are you having difficulty financing your graduate education, or is it coming easy for you? Should I be more optimistic about other forms of funding from graduate programs? (If so, please explain)
Any other relevant advice would be great. :)