Student Loans - Directing Payments

[chia04]

Hello everyone -- I think remember seeing someone address this question on the board before, but it was a long time ago and I can't find it anymore, and I don't remember the answer!  I'm in the very early stages of thinking about buying a house, so I'm trying to get my "financial house" in order.  I've purchased my scores through myFico and one of the things coming up on my score simulator is that I have lots of accounts with balances.

Very true, I'm working on getting my credit cards paid off, but the bulk of those accounts are coming from years of student loans (there are probably twenty different accounts reporting with balances).  A few of those accounts have very small balances, balances that I could pay off right now to try and get the total number of accounts with balances down.  However, I can't seem to find a way to direct my payments to only those loans.  Does anyone do this?  Do you think that the total number of student loan accounts with balances is having a big effect on my scores? 

Thanks!

[SCF]

Call in to make your payment and have the account/loan number handy, your servicer should be able to give you a current pay-off amount for the loan and then apply it right there.  Then just monitor your statements or online account to be sure the payment was applied properly.

I doubt that having many installment loans is having a huge impact on your score.  Tidying up your CC balances will probably have a much larger impact.  That said, those installment loans can have an impact on your debt-to-income ratio, which is very important when buying a home, so I see no reason not to start getting as many of those loans as you can paid off.