Do I really need a high school diploma?

_rentof2
Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:07:40 +0000

Taking the other side here… no, you don’t need a diploma. You’ll apply for college and be accepted (or not) long before you’d be getting the diploma anyway. What the colleges will want to see at the end of the year is your senior year transcript to make sure you finished your classes with respectable grades. They will not ask to see a diploma. Won’t happen.

As to regretting not getting it later, you certainly won’t regret it for any practical reason. Your college graduation is what will matter to employers and grad schools. Whether it will matter to you emotionally or not is something only you can answer.

I don’t think there’s any reason to take the GED either. The point will be that you took challenging classes across the subject areas and got good grades, and that’s what colleges will be looking at your transcript to determine.

My kids are homeschoolers, and so are in a bit different situation, but neither has a traditional institutional diploma and they got into college just fine. The oldest is going to Amherst, in fact.

The only minor issue I can think of is that when you fill out the FAFSA for financial aid there is a question that asks if you either received a diploma, took the GED, or are homeschooled. Those are your only three options. If you can’t check one of them, then you are expected to take something called an “abilty to benefit test” which people often accomplish by taking the COMPASS test at a local community college. (It’s much shorter and easier than the GED.) Anyway, that’s only a financial aid thing and doesn’t have anything to do with admissions.

In fact since most students fill the FAFSA out before they’ve finished senior year anyway, they just check what they anticipate doing, such as getting a diploma or taking the GED or whatever. You could check the GED box, and then take it some time in the summer after you finish your classes.