How do you "graduate" from HSing?

[nancy926]

I was thinking about this recently....is it necessary for HSers to take the GED? Or not? Will colleges want to see that they "graduated" in some way, or is the SAT or ACT good enough? Are there state requirements for "graduating"? It seems like in VT, once the child's 12th grade portfolio is approved, that'd be just like graduating....but I'm interested in feedback from those who have more info!
TIA!
Nancy

[lyterae]

I graduated using an accredited highschool program (American School). I don't recomend the program for various reasons but I know there are others out there that are accredited and will give the graduate a highschool diploma that is recognizable (sp?) by colleges.

Most colleges will accept ACT scores in place of/in addition to a diploma, it depends on the college.

[milehighmonkeys]

I would contact any colleges or university that said graduate might be interested in attending. It wouldn't surprise me if you got a different answer from each institution.

[Peony]

Originally Posted by lyterae

I graduated using an accredited highschool program (American School). I don't recomend the program for various reasons but I know there are others out there that are accredited and will give the graduate a highschool diploma that is recognizable (sp?) by colleges.

Most colleges will accept ACT scores in place of/in addition to a diploma, it depends on the college.

I did the same. I HSed myself though high school, I only joined American School just to get a diploma. I had to take my last semester of 12th grade there, but that was it.

[Peony]

Originally Posted by lyterae

I graduated using an accredited highschool program (American School). I don't recomend the program for various reasons but I know there are others out there that are accredited and will give the graduate a highschool diploma that is recognizable (sp?) by colleges.

Most colleges will accept ACT scores in place of/in addition to a diploma, it depends on the college.

I did the same. I HSed myself though high school, I only joined American School just to get a diploma. I had to take my last semester of 12th grade there, but that was it. This was 10 years ago so there might be many other options now days, but then there wasn't that many, and I didn't want a GED.

[Lillian J]

There are lots of different ways people go about moving from homeschooling to the next steps of their lives. My son and his friends just started taking classes at the community college at different points in their teens - first on a high school enrichment basis, and then as college credit. We never bothered with a diploma or the GED - he simply went on and applied to four year colleges when he was ready, and got a transcript from the community college for what he'd taken there. We also submitted just a one page general description of what he'd done in his teen years for our homeschool high school transcript. And he submitted Sat scores. But some colleges do want to see some sort of diploma from accredited schools, although some are perfectly happy with one you issue - and some even want details of courses studied - colleges are all so different.

There was a whole thread here recently about the GED. The search feature isn't working right now, so I can't find it - but you might try doing a search on GED when it is working and see what you find.

But by the time your child is old enough to be thinking about college, it's likely that things will be changed in various ways - so I wouldn't put a lot of energy into researching it yet. Here's a page of articles and other links that should be encouraging, though - Teens, high school, college, careers...

- Lillian

[MizLiz]

I think "graduating" or not depends on where you live... here in Nova Scotia, Canada, you can't graduate from high school if you homeschool.

I do know a number of kids, however, who homeschooled and are in university now (and are doing very well!). Many of them started taking university classes part time (they did not need to apply for a degree program to do this) and once they had a couple of courses completed, the university was fine accepting them into a regular degree program. To qualify for scholarships, the universities here usually accept SAT scores if there is no high school diploma.