I think you've received sound advice from other users. I'm a newbie here, but I recently applied for both cards so I thought I would chime in.
In the same day, I was instantly approved on-line for a Chase Freedom card and denied for a Discover IT. My scores were at the "starting" scores in my signature. When I called Discover to inquire about the denial, they brought up my student loan balance among other reasons including a few small accounts in collections (all parking tickets). I offered explanations on both, but no recon. At the time of application, I had about 3 recent inquiries and 0 in over 5 years prior to those.
