The GED high school diploma, officially known as the General Equivalency Diploma or the General Education Diploma, is not actually a high school diploma. It’s an alternative to earning a regular high school diploma from an institution. The program was initially started to help war veterans to continue their education and assimilate into society. When applying for a job, most employers require at least high school education level, and in addition to the high school diploma they accept the GED, which makes work available to individuals who didn’t graduate from high school. Sometimes the GED is colloquially and technically, inaccurately referred to as the GED high school diploma because it’s the equivalent of high school education level. Getting a GED sometimes has a stigma attached to it, being viewed as inferior to a “real” high school diploma, and while the experience of earning either diploma is different, in the real world they hold equal weight and take you the same distance. Having a GED doesn’t put you at a disadvantage compared to someone who graduated from an official high school.

There are various reasons why a person would go for a GED high school diploma—they might have dropped out of high school, taken homeschooling, immigrated, or been unable to graduate from high school due to not passing or because of personal reasons. The GED is often associated with celebrities who perhaps skip high school because of their busy schedules or because of harassment from peers, an unfortunate but common problem for famous students trying to fit into a normal school. Famous celebrities who earned a GED high school diploma are pop singers like Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Avril Lavigne, actors like Bill Cosby and Christian Slater, and others.

To register for the GED test, you have to be at least 16, a resident, and you can’t have a high school diploma or be enrolled in a high school. Then you have to show proof of identity, take a pre test to qualify, and pay a fee for the test. The actual test is administered in a public area like a community college. The GED consists of 5 topics: writing, social studies, math, reading, and science. It’s a standardized test, kind of like the SAT. There’s essay writing and multiple choice for math problems, science concepts, reading comprehension and history. After you pass the approximately 7 hour long test, you earn a GED high school diploma that says that your knowledge is at the high school education level standard.