<p>You’d be surprised how many people make it to college without an actual diploma. I definitely agree about getting a lawyer and exploring your options. I know in my school system, you could easily get enough credits to graduate as a junior but you needed to pass English as a senior (or pass it first semester of college). Even if you got some D’s, you still passed, right? (As they say, D is for diploma). You might still be able to get your diploma within the summer. Also, you definitely need to talk to your college. The hacking should be forgiven (as others said, it happens all the time at MIT). The cheating is more questionable. If it doesn’t invalidate your GPA (like you were busted changing the grade of an assignment and the teacher consequently gave you a zero for that), you’ve already begin to atone. If you can somehow demonstrate that you have learned from your mistake, you might be okay. I could see you starting college on probation, but starting nonetheless.</p>