It should not be seen as an embarrassment, or personal shortcoming if you don’t really understand much about credit scores. Few non-financial industry people out there really understand how they’re formulated. There was a survey released by the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) that implies we all should really get smarter on the subject. Not knowing the nuts and bolts of the credit score process can cost you money when you’re applying for a mortgage.

The CPA survey showed that there has been an learning curve over the course of the mortgage crisis, and in the past year, the survey showed, more of us understand how bank use credit scores and how they collect the data. But how are the scores calculated? How do they get to that number, exactly?