Hello,
I am currently a homeschooled sophomore, who will be a junior fall 2015. A lot of the colleges I’m thinking of applying to require a diploma or letter from superintendent or GED. I think the GED is the best option because getting a diploma as a homeschooler is extremely expensive, and the superintendent is not friendly towards homeschoolers. Has anyone else chosen this route? I just printed out some materials for the HiSET exam (which I guess is now the GED?) and it looks I might need additional help in it. Has anyone taken a class to prepare for it? If so, how did you go about it?
Thanks so much!
We created our own diplomas for each boy and had no problem with any school accepting them. Why pay for one when there’s no need? There’s no way we’d head a GED route. My guys had high stats. YMMV if you don’t have very high SAT/ACT scores.
My D applied to 18 colleges (for BFA musical theatre programs, thus the large number of applications). Despite high stats and college courses, one college that she was accepted to artistically asked for a GED. D refused and withdrew her application; it was a ludicrous, close-minded demand, especially since she’d be in the top 5-10% of freshman students. Even without her stats, we, like the poster above, wouldn’t have gone that route. None of the other schools asked for anything extra from her, and she was accepted academically to all.
Your own diploma, transcript, and course descriptions will be enough for most schools. Of course, once you determine your favorite schools, check with them. (Call them. That school I mentioned above listed nothing on their website about the GED requirement.)
What state are you in, @Buddy16? Homeschoolers in NYS have several ways to show secondary completion and one of them must be done before our colleges can award a diploma to a homeschooled student, but there are a couple of different ways to accomplish that besides the [TASC (Test for Secondary Completion/formerly GED).](http://www.tasctest.com/) or a Letter of Substantial Equivalency from the district superintendent. A specific set of 24 college credits or 5 Regents exams can satisfy the requirement too.
@austinmshauri i’m in Massachusetts!
Thank you all for your advice!
Any chance you can move? I know it seems drastic but we had so many problems homeschooling our kids in MA when they were just K-2 grade that we had to move. We lived in a very small school district and it was just miserable trying to get the required approvals not to mention the intimidation and discrimination we had to put up with from the school district.
@Buddy16, It’s important to understand your state homeschool laws. The MA [high school equivalency](http://www.ahem.info/HighSchoolDiplomas.html) does appear to be the HiSET. The TASC (Test of Secondary Completion, formerly the GED) is a federal exam, the HiSET is a MA test.
I’d take the HiSET and submit that to colleges. I think it looks better than the GED/TASC (even though the GED started as a college entrance exam for servicemen who enlisted in WWII before graduating from high school) because it’s so often now associated with high school drop outs.
NYS colleges will accept whatever the home state of the student takes as proof of substantial equivalency; you can check colleges in other states to see what they require, but I can’t imagine it’s different. As a NYS homeschooler, I’m required to follow NYS law, not the laws of other states, so when my son applied to college he sent his Letter of Substantial Equivalency to colleges in 6 or 7 different states and every one accepted it.
@austinmshauri yes I just got all the paperwork for the HiSET, I intend taking it next summer. Thanks so much for your help!