So I'm not going to water this down any; I have bad credit. In college I got in a fight and got hit in the head and it developed into what is called Histiocytosis X ( Lets see if anyone knows what that is!) and ended up destroying my credit with medical bills( i had insurance but they shafted me). So now here I am admitted to the Jan 07 term trying to figure out how to pay for med school. I checked my credit score and its a 570 (I know), so I began the arduous process of credit repair and dispute. It doesnt seem as if disputing any items on my report is going to help any. When I spoke to an attorney they told me that even paying off my debt will probably not raise my score any. So my father agreed to cosign but Ive heard that through teri and medachiever cosigners dont get you the loan they just get youa better interest rate. Supposedly I hae to have a minimum of a 620 to get approved. Someone on this forum showed me this strategy for raising your credit score by bombarding the credit agencies with disputes and taking advantage of the Fair Credit Reporting Act which sais that disputed items have to be removed for thirty days from the date of the dispute. Well thanks to Mr.Bush the Fair Credit Reporting Act was amended in 2006 to eliminate this loophole. Now Im feeling screwed. Has anybody with bad credit managed to figure this finance thing out. I have begun to consider the inevitable; deferring, and I really dont want to have to do that. Im not even sure it will make a difference. Help!

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"Don't get your Golgi in a complex..."

I was kinda in the same boat...medical bill bla bla bla. Only, my credit wasn't as bad as yours.

However, I remember I applied with a co-signer through Teri and it was instantly denied. Rather than go through the hassle of trying to explain my way through to Teri... I tried Sallie Mae signature loan. If you have a good co-signer (my co-signer was perfect), they'll approve it based on the co-signers credit.

I suggest you try Sallie Mae signature...it worked for me.

Yeah Im going to try the sallie mae loan. Then if that doesnt work my backup plan, for right now, is to try and secure a regular loan from a bank a maybe use a credit card to pay myself through paypal while in school to make payments on the loan because I wont be able to defer payments on them while in school, and make smaller minimum payments on the credit cards. Hopefully sallie mae will be ok though, because my "backup" is pretty sketchy as of now.

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"Don't get your Golgi in a complex..."

You also might be interested to know that there is no limit on the loan amount with Sallie Mae if you have a co-signer. And from what I understand, paying off previous loans is a legitimate expense when considering how much of a loan to take out for medical school. Something to think about. Hope it works.

Wow! I didn't know you could consolidate on a med school loan.

Is it tough to get a Sallie Mae loan without a co-signer? I'm older and have a home as collateral.

I'm a poor, recently out of college, 21 year old. So I'm not sure. If you have good credit, I'd imagine it's not a problem.

boulderunner, I called the following places today:

Sallie Mae International - Student Signature Loan
Student Loan Express - Health Express Loan
TERI

All three of them gave me the standard COOKIE-CUTTER boring responses. The usual, "we are happy to go over the loan options that you might have - generally, but unfortunately will not be able to give you any specific answers until you apply". So I am not sure if calling them will yeild any answers in terms of finding out your eligibility.

I would say the best bet is for other ValueMD posters to come forward and share their experiences with one or all of the above lenders.

For the posters who have information, please be specific about the tangibles, such as 1. years of credit 2. credit score (or atleast a range) and any other stuff that lets future students assess their chances fairly.

Thanks,
International.

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"The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us but so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over" - Jawaharlal Nehru

An easier thing to do is just apply and see how they respond...with Sallie Mae anyway. But plain and simple, you're most likely going to need a co-signer.

I suggest you not apply for TERI though...I guarantee you they will instantly deny you (even with a good co-signer...happened to me). Unless you're already prepared for a lengthy process with them.

Health Xpress...dunno.

So I called Sallie Mae today and had a lengthy discussion with a loan officer regarding my situation. She said she wouldnt really be able to say whether she thought I would be approved unless she pulled my credit report. Since I am currently in the process of rebuilding my credit I know all the details of my credit, so I just asked her: with a 570 credit score and about 9K of outstanding medical debt will I be able to get a loan either by myself or with a cosigner. Her response was that I will definitely need a cosigner, but that with a good strong cosigner I should be just fine. I also asked about whether paying my debt off and getting letters from the companies I owed showing that payment had been recieved would help any. She said no because it takes a long time from when a debt is paid for it to be reflected in my credit score. So long story short, I can get a loan!I figure a cosigner is better anyway to help secure the lowest possible interest rate. I was terrified that nobody would be able to finance me cosigner or not.

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"Don't get your Golgi in a complex..."

Good...now when you apply (just trying to make life easy for you):

1. Apply right away with a co-signer and have the co-signer sign first. Because if you sign first, then it processes you (without the co-signer) and you're obviously going to get rejected and that's going to take like 3 weeks.

2. Electronically sign, but print paper copies of your application. Sallie Mae's computer system was all funky last month. I ended up electronically signing like 8 times and sent in 2 paper applications and it still wouldn't update online status. Eventually, someone called and said all was good like 6 weeks later.

And for those of you who care, Saba certified my loan so my first disbursement is 9/1. Big screen TV! The down side, they only certified $45g, contrary to my request of $50g. So my theory of taking out an unlimited loan via Sallie Mae stands corrected...since the school wouldn't certify the extra money I guess. Oh well.