GED + Two-year college vs. HS Diploma + Two-year college

Applying to College
1

I’m currently a junior in high school. For a variety of reasons that I’m not going to go into here, I might not finish my 4th year of high school. I have legitimate reasons for this if that matters. I plan to get my GED but I’m very curious as to how this might affect chances of getting into a good 4-year college; my question is if you are transferring from a two-year college to a four year, would you be at a disadvantage in terms of admissions if you were applying with two years of college experience and a GED (college-ready level) like I plan to do vs. two years of college and an HS Diploma? Also, when you are transferring from a community college to a 4-year do High School grades matter much?

Thanks so much in advance :slight_smile:

2

If you intend to transfer at the sophomore level (i.e. after one year), then your high school record will still be a significant factor in admission, since you will not have much of a college record to show. If you intend to transfer at the junior level (i.e. after two years), then your high school record becomes less important, and may not even be required for some schools’ junior transfer admissions. Check each school’s transfer admission web site.

3

Thank you, that’s helpful. Would having a GED be seen as worse than a High School diploma?

4

Yes, it would. Some four year schools do not consider GED graduates.

5

Thank you. Even after I completed two years of college?

6

In addition, community college transfers have fewer choices (top colleges take few transfers and typically “lateral” transfers, ie., from other top schools that have different environments or academic offerings) and get lousy financial aid, with none of the mega scholarships offered to freshmen.

Are you currently dual-enrolled and have completed enough units to graduate HS early?
Or would you drop out?
Or another scenario?

7

@Erin’s Dad - Can you get us a list? I don’t know of any places that specifically refuse to admit people who have a GED rather than a HS diploma.

@Lynnux - If you complete your Associates degree at the community college, whether you have a GED or a HS diploma won’t matter much at all. However, you do want to somehow get one or the other in order to be eligible for federally determined financial aid.

How much can you pay for your education? What are your current grades like? Do you have ACT or SAT scores yet? If you have really good grades, and if you don’t need a whole lot of financial aid, many places will consider admitting you early to college. Here’s one list to look at, but many other places also will admit early on a case-by-case basis: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/early_college.htm

8

Generalizations about transfer admission requirements may not be too accurate. It is likely that most community college transfer students transfer to same-state public universities, so which state you are in is relevant in terms to assessing how realistic the transfer pathway is. For example, if you are in California, junior level transfers to UCs and CSUs do not need anything from high school (though some high school stuff may fulfill some base-level requirements), and the UCs and CSUs admit many community college transfer students and offer good in-state financial aid. But, in some other states, the community college transfer pathway to the state universities are poorly developed, and in-state financial aid may not be very good.

This may not be true for all super-selective schools. Stanford seems to announce that, for the few dozen transfer students it takes every year, many (often about half) come from community colleges, and some come from non-traditional (e.g. military) backgrounds.

9

^ it kinda proves my point, since it means about six to twelve (?) students among the thousands admitted to Stanford came from community colleges - and this is California, where community colleges are a real path to UC 's.

10

Here is an old list of schools that don’t accept a GED. http://www.ehow.com/info_7996476_colleges-dont-accept-ged.html I don’t know of a recent consolidated list. Some of it still seems to be accurate. For instance from Gonzaga’s web site:

Bowdoin says no GED: https://www.bowdoin.edu/ir/pdf/cds2014-15.pdf

You would need to check each school’s web site or Common Data Set to see if they do not accept one.

11

However, it indicates that Stanford does not appear to be exclusively admitting “lateral” transfers from other super-selective schools among its (few) transfer admits. It is true that transfers to Stanford are very few compared to frosh, but often about half of the transfers come from community colleges.

12

Also if you will be missing a year of high school, you might need to take remedial classes before you can take higher level math classes in CC and that might take longer than two years.

I would try and finish high school if possible.

13

What do you consider a good college? What do you plan to study? My advice is to decide on why 4-year universities you may want to transfer to. Get a group of 5 to 10. Ask them what their requirements are. Choose a CC that the university an articulation agreement with. Some CC may even have a 2+2 program with a local state university. The only way to know for sure is to ask the schools.