FAFSA question #26

[ShepCarlin]

Question 26: What will your high school completion status be when you begin college in the 2022-2023 school year?

Choices are: High School diploma, GED, Homeschooled or None of the above. 

I was going to put "high school diploma" since I will be giving him one but it will be from our family homeschool. Obviously, we aren't in the FAFSA system as a school. Does this cause complications? I hate that they differentiate between a high school diploma and homeschooled. Not matter which path you choose (high school or homeschool), you get a diploma!

I looked in the many FAFSA threads and saw this questions addressed but there wasn't an overwhelming consensus on an answer. Half of the respondents said "high school diploma" the other half said "homeschool". 

 

[fourisenough]

I just completed this on Saturday and I chose high school diploma. She’ll have one that is recognized by our state and given by me. I don’t even know what they mean by homeschooled? That doesn’t answere the question of what their ‘completion status is’. By definition, if you’ve completed high school, you’re no longer homeschooled, right?

[ShepCarlin]

That's kind of what I'm thinking. It is just set up in a weird way. I know homeschoolers aren't FAFSA's top priority but it would be nice if the question was more clear and straightforward. 

[Arcadia]

https://studentaid.gov/2122/help/high-school-completion

“This is question 26 on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA^®) PDF.

Select the answer that describes your high school completion status.

• "High school diploma” means you have received or will receive a U.S. high school diploma or a foreign school diploma that’s equivalent to a U.S. high school diploma before the first date of your enrollment in a college or career school.

• “GED certificate or state authorized high school equivalent certificate”means you have received or will receive a General Educational Development (GED) certificate or state authorized high school equivalent certificate before the first date of your enrollment in a college or career school. A state authorized high school equivalent certificate is a certificate that the issuing state recognizes as the equivalent of a high school diploma in that state. Note: A high school certificate of attendance and/or a certificate of completion are NOT the equivalent of a high school diploma.

• “Home schooled” means you’ve completed home schooling at the secondary level regulated by your state.

• “None of the above” means you don’t have a high school diploma, GED, or equivalent, and didn’t complete secondary school in a home school setting.”

[Tess in the Burbs]

I put down home schooled but my kids did get an equivalent diploma.  I'm still not sure if I did it right.  I messed up a lot of other questions as well.  I ended up doing the paper version and learned a lot more doing it that way.  But this question is still one I'm not sure about as well.

[kokotg]

I said homeschooled. I'm pretty sure that's what I said last time, too, and it didn't cause any problems. I can't imagine what else the homeschooled category is there for if it's not to indicate that your kid graduated as a homeschooler. 

[Melissa B]

I put homeschooled. I've never given my kids high school diplomas.

 

[fourisenough]

I guess this is sort of like the school profile  questions on the Common App; it’s just doesn’t really make sense in the context of homeschooling, so we are forced to just answer in the way that makes to most sense to us. 

[MerryAtHope]

I put high school diploma for my kids. I didn’t like how they differentiated when I first started filling out the forms, though now I might just put homeschooled! It doesn’t really cause an issue, but if you choose high school diploma, they want you to select the high school from a drop-down menu, and of course your choice won’t be there. They do allow you to type in a school name, but every single time they will ask you to double check and make sure that you entered that correctly since it’s not in their system. So it’s an extra hoop to jump through. It’s never caused any problems though.

[MerryAtHope]

I wanted to add, I don’t know why they don’t just let everyone choose diploma or ged, and make homeschool a drop down menu selection of your area high schools!

[cajunmom3]

I came here about to ask the question. I am still confused.

[Melissa B]

21 hours ago, cajunmom3 said:

I came here about to ask the question. I am still confused.

I think the consensus is that it really doesn't matter. No one seems to have had any issues regardless of whether homeschooled or high school diploma was chosen.