My 17-Year-Old Senior Wants to Drop Out and Get a GED – Here’s How We’re Handling It
It was a Tuesday night, around 8:15, and my son Marco was supposed to be finishing a history paper. Instead, he came into the kitchen, sat down at the table across from me while I was paying bills, and said, “I’m not going back to school after spring break. I’m going to get my GED.”
I didn’t drop my coffee. I didn’t gasp. I just put down the stack of envelopes and said, “Okay. Can you tell me more about that?”
It wasn’t the first time he’d mentioned hating school. He’d been saying that since tenth grade. But this was the first time he had a plan—or at least a plan that started with a three-letter abbreviation. I felt the usual mix of panic and relief. Panic because dropping out is a scary phrase. Relief because he wasn’t talking about quitting entirely; he was talking about a different route.
For the next twenty minutes, Marco laid it out. He had looked up the GED test online. He knew the four sections—math, science, social studies, and language arts. He’d even found a free prep site. His main argument was simple: high school felt like a waste of time. He was getting Bs and Cs in classes he didn’t care about, sitting through six hours a day of lectures and announcements and state-mandated testing. He worked part-time at a local hardware store on weekends and was already doing pretty well there. His manager had hinted at a full-time position if he had a diploma or GED. Marco saw no reason to wait another year plus a summer to get the same result.
I didn’t say yes, and I didn’t say no. I said, “Let me think about this with your dad. And maybe we could all sit down with someone from the school to talk about options.”
That conversation happened three weeks ago. We’ve learned a few things since then, and I’m sharing them not because we have it solved, but because I know other parents come to this exact moment and feel wildly underprepared.
The first thing that helped was understanding that “dropout” isn’t a single word for every kid. Marco wasn’t failing out or skipping class. He wasn’t in trouble. He was bored, but more than that, he was unmotivated by the structure itself. He didn’t hate learning—he loved history, especially 20th century stuff, and he could talk your ear off about how the Cold War affected American consumerism. But he saw no connection between that interest and the daily grind of school. That’s a common thread for seniors, I learned. They’re close enough to graduation to taste it, but far enough that the last stretch feels pointless. For some, the senior-year workload is like an endurance test with no reward except a piece of paper that everyone tells them they need.
We asked Marco a lot of questions, but not in an interrogation way. We tried to be curious. “What does a typical day look like if you get your GED?” I asked. He said he’d keep working at the store, take a community college class in the spring, and then apply to a four-year school as a transfer student. He’d already talked to the community college admissions office—that surprised me, and also impressed me. He was thinking, not just reacting.
That’s a useful question for any parent: ask your teen to describe their usual day six and twelve months after getting the GED. If they can describe something realistic, not a fantasy, that’s a good sign. If they say “well, I’ll figure it out,” that’s a yellow flag.
The next thing that helped was bringing the school in. I was nervous to talk to the counselor, but it turned out she was actually helpful. She laid out a few other options we hadn’t considered: an early graduation program, a hybrid schedule where Marco could take two college classes at the local community college while still finishing high school requirements, or even just a reduced course load for the last semester. She was candid that dropping out and getting a GED is not the disaster it used to be. Many colleges treat it the same as a diploma for admissions purposes, and financial aid doesn’t penalize you. She also said something that stuck with me: “The hardest part isn’t the GED. It’s that your whole social identity changes. He won’t be a high school student anymore. He’ll be a person who left.”
That worried me more than the academics, honestly. Marco has a small group of close friends. They’re all seniors, all graduating in June. If he left now, he’d miss the last few months of doing stupid stuff together—the spring sports, the prom, the senior prank that has been discussed in vague, possibly illegal terms. I told him that part. Not to guilt him, but to make sure he wasn’t ignoring it. He shrugged and said, “I don’t care about prom. I think I’d rather be earning money.”
That was honest. And I can’t tell you how relieved I was that he didn’t say “I’m only doing this because school sucks and I hate everyone.” He was choosing a trade-off, not running away. That felt important.
What we’re doing now is a kind of trial run. Marco agreed to finish out the semester—we’re in March now, so that’s about nine more weeks. He’s still going to his classes, but he’s also signed up for a free GED prep course at the community college that meets Tuesday and Thursday evenings. I take him there and pick him up. It’s not a punishment; it’s a way to make sure he actually likes the alternative before he commits. The course is three weeks in, and he seems more engaged than I’ve seen him in months. Not because the material is harder, but because he’s there voluntarily. He brings his workbook home and studies without being asked.
We’ve also set a few concrete conditions. If he gets his GED, he has to enroll in at least one community college class the following semester, even if it’s a basic English course. He has to keep a part-time job, but no more than 25 hours a week so he doesn’t burn out. And he has to give us a monthly one-page reflection—yes, I know that sounds silly, but he’s a 17-year-old, and we wanted some kind of check-in that wasn’t just “how was work?” He rolled his eyes but agreed.
It’s not perfect. I still have mornings where I wake up and think, my kid is going to be a high school dropout. The word still stings. But then I remember that my grandpa left school at 16 to work in a foundry and ended up running two shops. I have an uncle who got his GED in the military and became a nurse. Dropping out doesn’t mean giving up. It means choosing a different path, and sometimes that choice is actually a step forward, not a fall off a cliff.
We haven’t made the final decision yet. Marco still might walk across the stage in June with his class. Or he might take the GED in May and be done with it. Either way, the conversation is no longer about whether he’s ruining his life—it’s about what kind of life he wants to build, and how the next few months can get him there. I’m still nervous. But I’ve stopped thinking about “dropping out” as four words that mean failure. I now think of it as a fork in the road, and Marco is the one holding the map. My job is to make sure he’s reading it carefully, and that he’s okay with the detour. So far, he seems okay.
And that’s about the best I can hope for right now.
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