How low/high can your credit score go?

This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller.

When I went to law school, the grading scale was bizarre. Unlike the normal 0-to-100 range, where, say, 90 to 100 was an "A," the highest mark you could get was a 92. An "A" ranged from an 86 to 92. A "B" was an 80 to an 85. And this reminds me a lot of credit score ranges.

The other day a friend was telling me he had a credit score in the 900s. I told him that was impossible because credit scores range from 300 to 850. It turns out, however, that different credit scores have different ranges. So, out of curiosity I dug into the deep recesses of the Internet to bring you the range of credit scores for the various types of scoring models. Let's start with the familiar FICO score.

FICO range: The range of scores under the FICO scoring model is 300 to 850. While the folks at FICO don't assign letter grades to its scores or tell you what score constitutes "good," they do provide some useful information. According to myFICO.com, the best interest rates on a mortgage go to folks with scores between 760 and 850. Rates then rise as scores fall into the following ranges:

• 760 -- 850 (lowest interest rate).
• 700 -- 759.
• 680 -- 699.
• 660 -- 679.
• 640 -- 659.
• 620 -- 639 (highest interest rate).

What does that mean? A person in the highest range who gets a $150,000 mortgage may get, say, a 3.81% interest rate and would have a monthly payment of $700. A person on the lower end may qualify instead for a 5.4% interest rate and would pay $842 a month, according to FICO. (Note that the interest rates change daily. You can see today's mortgage rates here.) Post continues after video.

VantageScore range: The range of credit scores with VantageScore is probably the closest to a typical grading scale you'll find. Oddly, the top score is 990. Why it's not 1,000 is a mystery. The complete range of possible scores is 501 to 990. But VantageScore does assign a familiar letter grade to its numerical scores. Here's the breakdown from Experian:

• A. 901 -- 990.
• B. 801 -- 900.
• C. 701 -- 800.
• D. 601 -- 700.
• F. 501 -- 600 (high risk).

Equifax credit score range: Equifax offers its own proprietary scoring model with a range of 280 to 850. Just to confuse matters, Equifax also offers a FICO score, which is the better choice if you want to see the score most lenders will see.

Experian Plus score range: The Experian Plus score ranges from 330 to 830.

TransRisk score range: Like the FICO score, TransUnion's TransRisk score ranges from 300 to 850.

CE score range: While you may not have heard of the CE score, it was developed by CE Analytics and is used by the likes of Quizzle. According to Quizzle, the CE score ranges from 350 to 850.

With all of these different credit scores and ranges, one question to ask is, which one do creditors actually use? Though different creditors use different scoring models, FICO is by far the most widely used. You can get more details of the types of credit scores available in The Dough Roller's Complete Guide to Credit Scores.

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