GED & No Letters of Recommendation - What are my options?

Hi there! To keep a long story short, I’m in the process of earning my GED currently (on track for a perfect score), as well as SAT, and hoping to apply to a few liberal arts colleges soon. For some pretty difficult personal reasons I unfortunately wasn’t able to go to high school, and I’m also of a non-traditional age (25).

I know the LoRs are a pretty crucial part of the application process, but I’m at a loss at what my options would be here. Most of the schools I’m looking at require specifically faculty letters of recommendation as well (though I did check and they do in fact accept GED as a high school equivalency), and I don’t really have any faculty to speak of. I’m certain that the schools would understand my personal reasons for not being able to attend high school (I apologize for not elaborating on this further, but the gist of it is it had to do with a legally documented difficult health experience I had), but I don’t know that they’d offer me any other options here - nor do I expect them to, I know everyone has to abide by the same selection criteria.

I know community colleges are an option (i.e.: take classes there, get LoRs, apply to schools), but I’m concerned that if I became a transfer student I’d have less of a chance of being accepted to these schools, considering I’m looking at Smith, Wellesley, Mt. Holyoke etc (Acceptance rates around 29-50%). I’m certain that other than the LoRs, my stats are quite good, but I’m concerned that this one bump in the road would completely eliminate my chances at acceptance.

Do I have any other options here?

In your situation, could an employer write you a LOR?

I would expect that schools should be willing to accept references from non-academic sources, since that is pretty obviously all that you are going to have. If you are 25 and didn’t do high school, then you have been out of school long enough that I would not expect teachers from way back to remember you, or be possible to find.

I think that I would call admissions at a few universities that seem possible to you and ask them what to do about the references.

@thumper1 Unfortunately, no. I’m currently self employed as a web designer, so no employer to speak of.

Clergy person?

@Lorenne

What about clients? Do you have any long term clients who can attest to your skills, characteristics, reliability, strengths?

@3scoutsmom thank you so much for your response! Unfortunately no clergyperson either as I’m not too religious.

@thumper1 That’s a very good idea, I do in fact have some long-term clients though I’m not too sure it would be appropriate of me to ask them for a college recommendation letter, as that’s not customary in my line of work, but I’m wondering if that would even be any use to the admissions officer? As most schools admission reqs I read say specifically that they want LoRs from school faculty. However I guess that’s something I’ll have to ask them about.

@DadTwoGirls Thank you so much for your suggestion, that’s actually what I was planning on doing, contacting them directly and seeing what they might suggest.

I’m mainly trying to figure out, if for whatever reason I either can’t get any non-academic LoRs or the unis don’t accept non-academic LoRs, am I completely out of luck here?

You are a 25 year old. Even IF youngraduated from high school at age 18, your references from that time would be 7 year old…OLD news. Getting something from a current client or a couple of current clients would be so much more applicable.

I can’t imagine colleges want academic references from many years ago for non-traditional students.

I would agree…give a couple of school admission offices a call…and ask. But really…I think clients would be good.

At Smith specifically, the Ada Comstock Scholars program seems a great match for you (I’m guessing you already know about that, but if you don’t - look into it!) and I agree that current clients would probably be accepted as LORs in your case, but it is worth checking from school to school.

Many schools have programs and scholarships specifically for non-traditional students. I guarantee you won’t be the first such applicant for any of these schools. Call them, and ask what they suggest. Chances are they will look favorably on references from clients or consultants you’ve worked with. There are many paths to success, and many ways to show you have what it takes to succeed. Are there any other independent contractors you network with? Some of them might have ideas, or might even be able to write LOR as well, if they are familiar with the way you operate your business.

Thank you so much @CTScoutmom, I’ll be looking further into this and contacting the schools’ admissions department after the weekend to see what my options are.

And @thermom yes! Indeed I have heard of the Ada Comstock Scholars program, unfortunately I don’t think I’d be eligible for it as the applicants need to have already completed 48 liberal arts credits before applying, which I have not, but it’s definitely a program I plan on looking into further down the road.