I was standing in the test prep section of the bookstore where I work and thinking about how many of those tests I’ve had to take. APs, SATs and the like. Then, due to my high school screwing me over, I had to leave at the end of my junior year, at which I point I took the GED. Then came two and a half years of college and the GREs, but general and subject. I came to wonder, how many people take both. Who else drops out of high school, then eventually ends up in grad school. I know two other people that have GEDs, one an acquaintance that left high school and joined the work force. The other is my lab mate who took the GED when he dropped out of high school and then the GREs more than a decade later, as he prepares for grad school.
So, has anyone else out in doperville taken both? Do you have amusing stories about how you were ruining you life? I got told by a teacher that by leaving high school, I was ruining my life and would never amount to anything … yeah, I got into UC Berkeley’s Chemistry grad program, full boat, but I’ll never succeed in life.
One of my friends from law school dropped out of high school, got a GED, went to community college, then got his bachelors and is now a successful lawyer.
I don’t mind, the story is rather amusing in retrospect. I was an overachiever, took summer school classes on the promise that I could take math and science courses my senior year at the local state university through a program called dual enrollment. Then they cut the funding for the program, so SOL to the hundreds of students in public and like me, private schools, that were counting on it. But my school was willing to be nice. I could take math (Calc 3 and Dif Eq.) at a local college that was affilated with my high school. Okay, I could deal with that. So I filled out a schedule and submitted it in all due time. Then I was called down the academic deans office for schedule conflicts. That isn’t quite the right word. I had English, Religon and Latin. All of the classes I signed up for (other than English and religion as there were several sections of those) met at the same time. Looking at the schedules, I couldn’t take more than 4 classes no matter what I did. They suggested I take intro a Spanish (an 8th class). My father politely told them to go to hell. This was followed by the teacher who later told me that I was ruining my life to stop me in the hallway and yell at me about dealing with the problems. Many phone class later, UMass Lowell told me to apply and that they were conditionally accepting me on getting a diploma, GED, papal decree … you get the picture. My headmaster told my parents that if I took an English and Religion class over the summer, I could get a diploma. So I went to high school during the day and night school at college, five nights a week. Then, the second to last day of school, my father talked to the headmaster, who said oh, sorry, she can’t have a dipolma, the academic board said no. See the teacher that said I was ruining my life ensured that I would never get a high school diploma out of spite. On June 2nd (mind you, this all started the first week in May) I officially withdrew from high school. I took the GED in the middle of July and by the first week of September, I was sitting in the front row of Organic Chem. I rarely look back and have never regreted the decision. I hate the fact I had to make, but I won’t give this life up for a high school diploma and going to the right ivy league college. No way in hell.