We have applied for a Parent Plus loan through our sons school. We still don’t know if we were approved yet. Everyone keeps telling us we can do a credit ck on studentloan.gov and we can find out right away but every time we attempt to find it we can’t figure out where the heck the credit ck part is. It just says the actual parent plus loan application which is what we already filled out & the mpn which we already filled out. There is no link that specifically says it is just the credit ck part of the parent loan? What are we doing wrong? Thanks for any assistance at this point we are fed up and beyond stressed out lol.
Did you apply for the PLUS loan through the studentloans.gov website, or does the school run the credit check in-house? If you did indeed apply online and checked the “Request a PLUS Loan” option and begin the application process, it tells you immediately at the end if you have been approved or denied. The application runs the credit check at the end when you apply at studentloans.gov.
I will confirm with my spouse how he did it exactly. I know he 1st had to go to the schools website and started the application there but I believe during the process of filling it out the school sent him to the studentloans.gov site to complete. When we checked with the college they went in to see and said the parent plus loan was applied for and is being processed but the credit ck wasn’t asked for. They said the official release for the credit cks isn’t for a couple more weeks the school said. If we already requested a plus loan will the credit be hit twice if we fill it out a 2nd time? The school did say we could go to the studentloans.gov site and do a credit ck if we wanted to know before the school was officially notified but does that mean we have to fill out the actual parent plus loan again OR is there a certain link just for the credit ck part?
If you go through the studentloans.gov website, you are probably going to have to complete the entire application. I don’t believe you can skip ahead to have the credit ran just to find out what is going on. For additional help, continue to work with your school (because it sounds like they have some sort of in-house processing going on) and you can also work with Direct Loans by calling their help line at 1-800-557-7394.
Ok so we just completed the request parent plus loan on studentloans.gov . At the end it says you have successfully submitted a Direct Plus loan request & your credit has been approved. Ok dumb question but this means that I can breathe easy at this point right? We have been approved and it means we will get the loan for school is this correct?
Yes, that would be correct.
Lol @kgos16 Thank You! It’s just that as soon as I thought we were in the clear I was sent an email and it confused me by stating : Your credit was approved pending our receipt of loan records from the school you attend. You must meet all other requirements for borrowing a direct plus loan. Your school will tell you what loans, if any, you are eligible to receive. Depending on the timing of the schools submission, another credit check may be run with a different outcome.Why does this email make it seem like we can still get denied at this point?
The school has the responsibility of originating the loan, and if this process is completed after the credit check expires, you may have to complete a new credit check. This is what the email was referring to. However, your approval does not expire for 180 days, so the school should definitely have the loan processed in time.
Make sure you know the school’s policies for requesting a PLUS loan. Although parents/grad students can do the online PLUS application for the school where I used to work and for the school where I currently work, neither school actually uses the online application for a loan. Both schools require a paper application request. The credit check is valid for 180 days, as kgos16 states, and the MPN will be valid, as well.
My school is mixed. Parents can apply at studentloans.gov, but graduate students have to start their request for the application through their portal/on paper and we run the credit for those specific students. The policies can definitely vary school by school, @IsItOverYetMom
okay. We had contact with the actual school from the beginning concerning the parent plus loan . They put it in our financial aid award package. They told us when the parent plus loan link was available on the school website we could proceed to apply. When it became available we went to the school site and started the application process at some point in the process it directed us to the studentgovloan site to continue and we completed the application. The school said they had it in the records that we applied but the credit ck request or approval part was not completed so they couldnt tell us if we were approved or not yet. They are the ones who directed us to the studentgovloan site to fill out the credit ck process to see if we would be approved or not. They said we could wait till the school was officially notified or we could go to the studentgovloan site to find out right away so we could plan accordingly. I just wanted confirmation that it was a 100% we had the loan. They said it would be a few more weeks before anything was posted or processed to our accounts.