My Senior in High School Wants to Drop Out and Get a GED: How We’re Handling It
It was a Tuesday night, and I was draining pasta when my son came downstairs and dropped his backpack by the kitchen table with a thud. He didn’t say hi. He just said, “I’m not going back tomorrow. I’m going to get my GED.”
I turned off the sink. His senior year had been rough, but not catastrophic—missed assignments, a few failing grades, the usual complaints about school being boring. I assumed we were in for a long few months until graduation. So this hit out of nowhere.
“Okay,” I said, because that was all I could manage.
He looked at me like he’d expected a fight. “That’s it?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say yet,” I said. “Sit down and tell me what’s actually going on.”
He sat. The dog came over and put her head on his knee. He said, “I can’t do another year of sitting in rooms where everyone hates being there. I’m just filling a seat. I’m not learning anything. If I get my GED, I can start working full-time or go to community college when I’m ready. What’s the point of staying?”
That’s the moment a lot of parents probably make a mistake. I almost said, “Because a diploma matters.” But I didn’t. Because I wasn’t sure that was true anymore, at least not for him.
Instead I asked a practical question. “What does your day actually look like?”
He shrugged. “I go to first period, I sharpen a pencil, I check my phone, I wait for the bell. Second period I draw in my notebook. Third period is the one where the teacher actually knows me. Lunch is okay. Then I don’t learn anything for two hours.”
That was the first useful information he’d given me in a year. He wasn’t saying school was too hard. He was saying it was too empty.
I told him I’d read about GED requirements for our state before we talked. He said I shouldn’t look at it. I said, “We’re looking at it together if we’re looking at it at all.” So we sat at the table and pulled up the actual rules.
In our state, you have to be 17 to take the test without waiting until 18. You need parental permission. You also need an exit interview with the district. There’s a fee for the test itself, though fee waivers exist. The GED is four subject tests: language arts, math, science, social studies. When my son saw that, he said, “I already passed those classes.” I said, “That doesn’t mean you’ll pass the test.” He went quiet.
That was the first thing that made him hesitate. I think he’d imagined the GED as a loophole. It’s not. It’s a test you have to prepare for, often on your own, with nobody taking attendance, nobody reminding you to study, and nobody chasing you when you fail. A lot of adults take it because they have to. A 17-year-old taking it needs to treat it like a job, or it just becomes a longer way to not finish school.
I didn’t say any of that in a scolding way. I just read the pages out loud and let him hear it.
I also asked him to tell me what he would do the week after he dropped out. He said he’d get a job. I asked where. He hadn’t thought about it. I asked how many hours he’d need to work to pay for gas, car insurance, and whatever he wanted to save. He said he didn’t know. I asked what happens if he fails the GED math section. He said he’d take it again. I asked what it would cost to retake. He looked it up and said, “That’s annoying.”
That’s the thing about dropping out. It sounds like freedom until you attach dates, numbers, and failure to it. That’s not a lecture. It’s just the logistics.
We didn’t solve anything that night. But we did agree on one thing: he would go to school for the rest of the week and meet with the school counselor. Not to be talked out of it. To hear what options existed that he wasn’t seeing.
His counselor, to her credit, didn’t panic either. She told him that in our district, seniors could apply for an adjusted schedule if they were working or taking college classes. She showed him a dual enrollment option where he could take a free community college course during the same time slot as his least useful class. She also mentioned early graduation—if he had enough credits and passed a couple of exams, he could finish in January instead of June. That was new information to him. Nobody in our house had known that.
He came home that day different. Not cheerful. But different. He said, “I didn’t know you could just leave after first semester.” I said, “You can’t just leave. You’d have to pass classes and apply. It’s not automatic.” He said, “But it’s possible.”
I think that’s the part a lot of parents miss. When a teenager says they want to drop out and get a GED, it isn’t always about hating school. It’s often about feeling trapped in a system that treats them as a number for four years and then suddenly expects them to care about transcripts and GPAs. They want an exit. The GED looks like an exit because it’s concrete. You study, you take a test, you get a credential. That’s more satisfying than another year of bell schedules and lunchroom drama.
But it’s also a permanent decision with real costs. A GED is not the same as a high school diploma in every situation. Some employers treat them the same. Some colleges do. Some don’t. And if a student drops out at 17 without a plan for the next six months, they often end up working a low-hour job, sleeping late, and then feeling even worse about themselves. The GED starts to feel unclimbable because there’s no structure.
So the practical approach, for us, was to slow everything down.
Here’s what I’d say to any parent in this position: Don’t say “no” and don’t say “yes.” Say, “Help me understand what’s driving this.” Then ask the questions that make the future real. What does your week look like after you leave? How much will the test cost? What happens if you fail? What’s your backup plan? These aren’t trick questions. They’re just questions that a 17-year-old probably hasn’t fully answered.
Also, talk to the school before you make any decisions. Counselors know about things like credit recovery, early graduation, independent study, or alternative programs that you won’t find in the student handbook. Some schools have a dual enrollment program that lets seniors take classes at the local community college. That might solve the boredom without a permanent exit.
And if your child is still set on the GED, don’t make it a secret plan. Contact the testing center, find out the exact requirements, and ask your child to write out their study schedule for the next three months. If they can’t do that, that tells you something important.
My son is still in school right now. He’s not ecstatic. He still complains about the early bell. But he’s meeting with the counselor next week to look at the dual enrollment application, and he’s scheduled a practice GED test for March, just to see where he stands. He hasn’t dropped out. He also hasn’t fully committed to staying. We’re holding both possibilities at once.
I don’t know if he’ll end up with a diploma or a GED. Part of me still wants the diploma, because it’s the path that’s already built. But I also know that keeping him in a seat just because it’s tradition isn’t a good enough reason. What matters is that he’s making this decision with his eyes open, not as a way to disappear.
We’re a few weeks in, and there’s no clean answer. The dog still sleeps at his feet while he does homework he says is pointless. He still glances at GED study guides online. I still don’t know what I’ll say if he walks into the kitchen next Tuesday and says he’s ready to leave for good. I guess we’ll talk about it when we get there.
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