Will a balance transfer help or hurt my score in this situation?

[Anonymous]

I am trying to raise my scores as high as possible to help increase my chances of getting a private student loan without a cosigner next spring.

This is my situation:

Right now, I have several credit cards, but only 2 of the cards carry balances. I also have a credit account with Dell.  

Card A - $4400 balance out of 6400, 16.9% APR

Card B - $1500 balance out of 2000, 15.9% APR

Dell - $1200 balance out of 2000, 29.9 % APR (ripoff!)

After realizing that I am getting ripped thanks to the 29.9% APR on the Dell card, I am considering doing a balance transfer to Card A, which has a special balance transfer offer right now. After a lot of consideration over whether or not I should do it, I have it narrowed down to 2 Pros and 1 Con.

Pro: - 1 less credit account that shows a balance

        - Save money by not having to pay on a 29.9% APR

Con: If I transfer the Dell balance to Card A, it will have a balance of 5600, appearing almost maxed out.

Would the damage done by having Card A with such a high balance (almost maxed out) outweigh the damages caused by having the Dell account remain open with such a high APR? Basically, I am just wondering if doing this BT would help my score or hurt it.

Thanks for any help with my dilemma

[Anonymous]

Your overall utilization will not change. Therefore, I don't think your score will change at all. There are a few more things you can do. first of all, try to pay as much of your debt as possible (It always comes down to this!) You are probably going to have to reduce your utilization to at least under 40%, which means you'll have to pay off about $3000 Secondly, you can ask for a moderate CL increase from your CC companies. Make sure that this is done without a hard credit pull. You will need at least $7000 higher limit to get to 40% utilization. This is probably not going to happen, so you're stuck with paying a big chunk of money. Thirdly, make sure that your report is clean and correct. you are entitled to one free report from all agencies per year. If you haven't done so yet, it's time.