Stupidest Reasons for Not Graduating

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was reading this thread, and there was a comment about people who aren’t actually graduating being allowed to walk in graduation ceremonies. So, I remembered that I was allowed to walk, even though I wasn’t actually graduating yet.

In high school, I absolutely loathed PE. It just seemed stupid, I could get better exercise on my own, I never really learned anything from it, and thus I’d find excuses to not go.

So, the week prior to graduation, I was informed that I had too many absences in PE and I would not be allowed to graduate unless I wrote a 10-page paper on any subject pertaining to PE. This paper was due the Monday after the graduation ceremony. Nobody really cared all that much, I think if he could, the PE teacher would have just allowed me to pass, but the principal wanted me to do SOMETHING to compensate for my absences.

I was in the library doing some research, and the art teacher (and wife of another PE teacher, not mine) came up and asked what I was up to. I told her, and she said, “that’s stupid…I hope you’re not planning on putting too much work into it, nobody’s even going to read it, I guarantee. You should just print something off from the internet and put your name on it.” So, as much as I hate plagiarizers, I figured what the hell…if no one’s going to read it, it’s just a silly formality to appease the principal, and I could probably get away with typing “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” for 10 pages, so I might as well.

I went to the graduation ceremony and was presented with a “certificate of attendance” in a diploma folder. I had my little party, blah, blah, blah, and on Monday I headed down to the school to turn in my fake paper. I handed it to the teacher, and as expected, he threw it directly into the trash can and said, “congratulations.” I went to the office, told the principal I gave the PE teacher my paper, he said, “great,” signed my diploma, shook my hand, and said congratulations and presented it to me while the secretary hummed Pomp and Circumstance.

So while I’m not proud of the time I plagiarised a paper, I don’t feel too bad about it, given the level of importance placed on the content.

Anybody else have a stupid not graduating story?

2

This actually happened to my grandfather, in a sense. He couldn’t afford the white shorts required for PE class, was too proud to admit this to his teachers, so stopped going to school. He turned out alright, though.

Almost happened to me. If I had failed typing, I wouldn’t have met the “business class” requirement, so the last week of HS, my friend and I were in the typing room cranking out my assignments so I could slide by in that class. I think I was also up against the limit of (excused) absences, for various school-related activities.

3

Well, I graduated but they didn’t give me my diploma. My AP English teacher (who really hated me, it was even obvious to the other kids in the class. Dunno why, I was a quiet kid but I was punk way back in the 80’s and I think that offended her.) claimed I hadn’t returned a paperback book that I had never checked out. In fact, I even owned my own copy which I brought and showed her but she wasn’t convinced. Anyway, I was allowed to walk the stage and I got the little holder but inside was a little note that read “[tremorviolet] owes $2.85”. I still don’t have my diploma but I was forced to pay the $2.85 something like 10 years later when I was trying to get transcripts sent.

Dammit, I NEVER CHECKED OUT THE BOOK! (obviously, I’m still bitter :slight_smile: ) If you’re out there Mrs. Kanipe, teacher of AP English at Gainesville High School in the mid-80’s, you owe me $2.85.

4

If it weren’t for my horse…

5

But we’re talking High School graduation here, I believe, not that year I spent in college…

-foxy

6

Ah, my mistake.
Beg your pardon. :slight_smile:

7

Holy cow, that’s my story almost exactly, but at my school they didn’t let you walk if you didn’t turn in overdue books. In my case I susposedly checked out a book I knew hadn’t. Out of some overblown sense of righteous indignation, I refused to pay for it, since my Mom had to be out of town on business that week anyway, I didn’t care. I never did pay for that book, but about mid summer my diploma arrived in the mail. I’ve never seen it, my Mom misplaced it before I returned from the Army.

8

My dad once told me that he failed one class in his senior year because he had talked back to the teacher two weeks earlier. The way he told the story, it was pure retaliation.

Of course, my dad tends to omit key parts to his stories and/or change the events to suit his mood. It’s quite possible that if I asked him today, he’d deny the alleged incident ever happened.

9

When I graduated college, I had completed all the course work but didn’t walk since none of my family would come. My mother just didn’t do things like that and my father is loathed in the state of Minnesota - so I just got drunk that day.

10

A friend of mine that I worked with when I was in high school went to a local Catholic school. In his senior year, they suddenly changed the number of credits you needed to graduate, so that even though he had had enough, he wouldn’t, and so he had to take summer school. They let him walk on stage, though. I thought that was insane.

I didn’t do the walk in college because I thought it was a waste of money (cap and gown rental). I went for the diploma, not for some stupid ceremony.

11

I didn’t graduate on time from high school because I fucked around too much in English and failed. I had to take it over in summer school, and then I got my diploma but no ceremony.

12

There were a bunch of kids in my senior class who made a vampire “porn” (no sex but lots of the people were nekkid during parts of it) movie, and the two directors/masterminds behind the film were barred from graduation. It caused a bit of a scandal as they didn’t film it on school property, but the administration still wanted to punish them. Go fig.

I didn’t walk in my college graduation ceremony either, for the same reason as Guinastasia. Also the fact that there were almost two thousand people there and it would have taken many, many hours. And it was hot that day.

13

My dog ate my graduation ceremony… :smiley:

14

My brother went to a couple different colleges before he finally made it to his dream school. He wanted to go there more for its partying tradition and his friends rather than its academics, so there were plenty of dropped classes, summer school that meant he had to stay there rather than come home, etc. etc. My grandparents honestly belived his grades were low because he spent all of his time playing basketball with his friends.

After three years there, he walked in May but had one more class to complete before he actually graduated. My parents were happy that he was finally going to finish, although even back then I thought it made the commencement ceremony we endured rather pointless. He did a project about our hometown’s history, then moved to a city near it and began working.

Months go by, and his degree fails to appear in the mail. My parents find out about a sheaf of unpaid campus parking tickets-my brother had apparently parked everywhere but on the president’s lawn-and promptly paid them so they would no longer hold up the awarding of his degree.

More time passes. My grandparents now openly question whether or not he actually got the degree. My brother assured everyone that he had completed the requirements, and everything would be hunky-dory just as soon the professor came back from sabbatical from Turkey.

He eventually got his degree, marked 1998. He was supposed to have graduated in 1996.

15

I failed to graduate high school because they kicked me out three weeks before final exams, and I wasn’t even doing anything!

Okay, I literally wasn’t doing anything at all at school and that’s why they threw me out :wink:

16

In my high school, a student is required to take two years of P.E. During my second year of taking aerobics, my grandfather was diagnosed with colon cancer. His illness progressed very quickly, and I was forced to take weeks off to fly to Thailand with family as he was seesawing between life and death.
My academic classes were very understanding and let me write my essays and send them via e-mail. Hell, I was even able to take my geometry tests overseas since my teacher knew how much I was going through. But my aerobics instructor was furious and made me take extra classes in order to cover the classes that I missed. She told me that she would have no problem failing me and making me take her class over the next year to replace the F she would give me(junior year, a high school student’s busiest year) - and it had to be within the next schoolyear, or the grade would stay on my transcript.

When my grandfather died later that schoolyear, I told her that she should grow a heart and I left for the funeral. The old hag didn’t fail me, surprisingly. But she did write on my report card “excessive absences, needs to work harder”.

17

I failed to graduate college because I was too damn lazy to do any work or go to class.

I have no regrets. :cool:

18

Shortly before I got out of high school I was at a friend’s house, and her mother was reminiscing about her own high-school graduation. Getting really into the spirit of the thing she went off to find her diploma, which she had stored along with the corsage she had worn to her prom and other scrapbook memorabilia. So there was this rolled-up piece of parchment, tied with a very faded once-green ribbon, and with an official looking gold seal on it (below the ribbon). She slid the ribbon off, said something like, “I’ve never even looked at this!” and when she unrolled it out came this rolled-up sheet, so rolled up that it practically took all three of us to hold it flat, that had these purple mimeographed words that said (paraphrased), “You will receive your official diploma when you have turned your cap and gown in to the registrar’s office following the ceremony.”

Heh. She wasn’t kidding when she said she hadn’t even looked at it.

She went on to college and then got married and in 25 years nobody ever asked for her high school diploma. And a good thing, too.

19

I would frame that and place it somewhere conspicuous. That’s friggin’ hilarious!

20

When my Dad was at school, the headmaster told him to get a hair cut or not to come back. My Dad choose not to get a hair cut. :smack: