Do high schools welcome dropouts back? Is there an age or time span where they tell the person to earn a GED?
For example a kid drops out in March. Has a change of heart and wants to return in August when school starts. Would he/she be welcomed back? Would his grades effect the decision?
What if its been a year or two? When do the High Schools say “Go take classes and earn a GED.”?
I think there’s a maximum age, maybe 20.
If you are under 18, you can re-enroll. Over that, our district will refer you to Adult Ed. Grades would be a huge factor, and it is doubtful they would let the kid back into the regular high school. They would get sent to the Continuation High school instead.
My dad used to work for a specific school that catered to dropouts who were older than the usual age for admission to high school. There may be something equivalent in the hypothetical kid’s area.
The rules are going to depend on your state and maybe district, too. But the schools are run by educators, and they will want to help the young person get educated. Just go ask the superintendent’s office and they’ll gladly lay out all the options.
In my state you could be enrolled in public school up to age 20. After that you had to go to night school or take the GED. There were private classes available for GED study.
In my area, if you drop out and then decide to go back after your class graduates, you have to go a program run by the local tech school to receive your GED. If it would be before your class has graduated, you can go to the alternative high school, no matter how far behind you are on credits.
I’d imagine a GED is tougher than just finishing high school? No one made me pass a comprehensive test to get my HS diploma. A comprehensive test on several years HS work must be rough.
Kids in my state now have to take a literacy exam to graduate HS. But I don’t think its much more than basic reading/writing skills. Some basic math.
In Georgia, we had the Georgia High School Graduation Test that you had to pass to graduate. It had 5 sections and took 2.5 hours per sections (if you’re curious, the sections were math, science, social studies, literature, and a written section).
I took each section in 30 minutes, took a 2 hour nap each day, and passed with flying colors. I believe the GRE in Georgia is about as difficult. That being said, you got 5 chances to pass the graduation test, and we still had people that didn’t walk because of it. So the GRE itself is not too difficult (you could probably pass it in 10th grade if you really wanted to), but the kind of people that end up taking the GRE probably didn’t have stellar grades to begin with.
Good question—anyone have any idea what percentage of ordinary high school graduates would pass the GED if you made them take it upon graduating high school?
The GED has an undeserved reputation as a slacker’s diploma. It’s actually a lot harder than your basic high school requirements in a lot of ways.
I have helped a friend’s kid with his GED practice tests. The test questions are primarily made up of fairly straightforward reading comprehension and pretty basic arithmetic. Look at these sample questions. I would say that one who did well in high school would have zero trouble passing (I did well in HS and I found the practice test to be extremely easy). OTOH, of course, if one had difficulty with high school level material, the GED test could be challenging. Which, I suppose, is exactly the point.
The GED tests I’ve seen are not too difficult, and the government pays for study programs for adults to get a GED. I think that mostly anyone who could have graduated high school if they didn’t drop out would be able to pass the GED with some prep work. That wouldn’t include someone like an athlete who wouldn’t be able to graduate if they actually had to do the work, or a school where they just promote anyone.
Yeah, I live in NY and I had no trouble not only passing the GED but scoring very highly on it too. Thing is I was a really good student, in all the smart classes (I dropped out for other reasons). The one thing people seem to worry about the most is the math part of the GED, but that’s just because math always seems to be most people’s worst subject (I was a math major!) I could have passed the GED in sixth grade easy (not done as well, but still passed).
My cousin, who was also a very good student, dropped out in 11[sup]th[/sup] grade to take a good job offer. He even met with his principal and he told him it probably wasn’t a bad thing to do! He then went to night school while also working and got a genuine diploma, not an equivalency.
High school dropout here. Why go back if you could get a GED? It’s much quicker and easier, even if you take a ‘study course’ of a few weeks before.
I only took 3 of the 5 exams required for the GED, but they were comically easy. Read a few paragraphs of material, answer simple multiple choice questions. I scored in the 99th percentile for all of them. It’s not like I’m a genius.
Why didn’t I ever finish taking the tests? Because I have no interest in going to college, and everyone, including my employers, assumes I already did, just like most people in their 20s working in the service industry in large cities.
If I ever have children, I will encourage them to take the GED at the earliest legal age in our state and spend their late teens on something more worthwhile, like taking courses at community college or trade school, and working to save up money for education, or to become independent.
This assumes that the experience of attending high school has little value, at least compared to the alternatives. Whether this is true or not depends on the high school, and on the student; but it’s ridiculous to assume it’s true for everyone in general.
Back in the late 70’s my high school would let students graduate a year early by taking their senior English and IIRC senior History in summer school. Finishing early was discouraged unless the student wanted to attend the Vo Tech school and learn a trade.
Students that wanted to attend college needed the senior year classes for college prep.
There are groups that don’t consider the GED to be as good as a high school diploma. I have a nephew who’s a Marine enlisted man. He did a tour as a recruiter. He tells me that the Marines will not accept someone with just a GED, while they will accept someone with just a high school degree. (Of course, there are other requirements they must also meet.) He says that a recruiter will tell someone with a GED, “Go to community college for a semester. Get acceptable grades. Then we can take you.”
I presume the GED and high-school dropout situation likely indicated someone who probably had difficulty sitting still through a semester of classroom work. Whether that’s ADD, authority problems, dyslexia, or whatever… I assume because of the structure of the corps life, they want to rule out people who have difficulty; I assume a lot of the support roles in the force require learning the job in the classroom setting. Basic training probably also needs classroom work.
My ex boyfriend was kicked out of high school in 10th grade. Technically, he had a two-year suspension instead of an expulsion, but it amounted to the same thing. He wanted to take his GED immediately and could have probably passed it, but they would not allow him to take it before the rest of the class graduated. He could have enrolled in an alternative high school, but instead he decided to go straight to community college. The CC let him enroll as a part time student and he started getting college credit while the rest of his class was still in high school. After they all graduated, he got his GED and start going to community college full time.