Online High

One of the greatest challenges for students and parents seeking a legitimate online high school is whether it is a real school with real accreditation. Here’s a little advice:

1. Don’t trust Google to help. Google does little to differentiate between good and bad options in this field.

2. Don’t trust how high a school shows up in listings on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and more. When I do a Google search, on the very first page, I discover schools that I would never recommend because I believe that, at best, they lack any reliable recognition and, at worst, are out-and-out fakes. That’s on the first page.

3. Fake schools are very good at getting good page rankings. They spend much time working to make sure that they are one of the top options available.

How can you fix that? If you ask about a specific school in the forum, I am happy to help.

As I have mentioned numerous times, you need to be careful of choosing the right online high school. Choose the wrong one and you end up with a worthless piece of paper. I came across the article below that talks specifically about this problem. See:

Beware of online high school diploma mills

And, as always, if you are not sure, post a question in the forum.

I truly thought that I had seen every online high school scam on the planet. I have been doing this sort of thing for a while now.

And yet I have just discovered an “accredited” high school diploma available on E-Bay. I don’t even mind linking to it because it is so obviously phony that you sort of deserve what you get if you bid on it.

I did go to its website. The accreditor listed is fake. And, importantly, real colleges and high schools rarely allow you to pay using Google Check-out.

Please do not think that this school is the worst of the bunch. There are many that are equally bad, but that look more professional. A fake is still a fake. A diploma mill is still a diploma mill.

Something important to know: Many of these folks get caught. They get fired. They get their admissions application rejected. Don’t let this be you particularly because there are so many alternatives out there that are legal and legitimate.

Here is my pledge to you: If you come across one of these websites and you are not sure if it is legitimate or not, please feel free to post a question in the forum. You will get an answer.

A cursory look at the website of this school shows:

1. No names of administrators or teachers.

2. No postal address.

3. No email address.

4. No telephone number.

And so on. I should mention, though, that there are some of these diploma mills that will give you some of this information; some fake and some real. In this case, it would be important to evaluate the site based on the entire list.

Some of these sorts of schools will say that they are accredited. In the case of the school I have been detailing, it says it is accredited by Alder International Accrediting Organization. This is not even a very good fake. The good fakes accredit more than one school. This is a bad fake. Note, however, the use of the word “fake” to describe both kinds.

Legitimate accreditors are listed here and here.

While one of these fake schools do not have to be cheap, they often are. They exist to prey on those people who need a high school diploma the most and figure that they will make up for the cheap cost by getting many students to sign up.

The example that I have been using is even having a summer discount of only $160. Yes, this is absolutely a rip-off. The reason it is so cheap now are the “grants from our sponsors.” Yeah. Right.

One way that you can tell the target audience for this is that they will even let you pay the money in installments.

Let’s see:

1. Tuition = $160.00 +
2. Piece of paper = $0.10 -
3. Profit = $159.90

That seems a rather nice profit margin. Note, though, that it is a piece of paper and not a diploma. A diploma is based on something.

One more way to know if a school is legitimate is the use of an equivalency test* to prove that you have high school knowledge. On that “school’s” website, it says:

If there are still some credits needed for a diploma, then you can choose to take our equivalency test.

There is one legitimate equivalency test called the GED. Most of us know about that one. It is a quite legitimate way to earn an alternative credential to a high school diploma. However, the GED is not offered online and has no relationship with websites that offer to let you take one of these sorts of tests.

Tomorrow, yet one more point.

As you recall from yesterday, I am profiling a diploma mill in the hopes of teaching you what to avoid. Yesterday, I wrote about unreasonable time expectations. Today, I want to look at life experience credits.

On its website, the “school” in question offers the following statement:

Answer some questions about your life and work experiences, the number of years of high school education you had if any, other things you have done, etc. Usually there will be enough credits based on this information to issue a high school diploma.

While I am sure submitting this information will result in them giving you a piece of paper, it would be wrong on your part to assume that the paper is a diploma or worth anything. The problem with their statements is actually two-fold:

1. It offers to give you credit for courses you have taken, but does not require transcripts; and
2. It offers to give you credit for “other things you have done.” This, in that industry, is often called life experience credits. It’s a fake. You cannot get a high school diploma or a college degree based on life experience credits.

Stay tuned for the next point.

I received an email today about this high school* and I thought it was a good jumping-off point for teaching how to recognize fake high schools. Over the next several days, I am going to post one point each day.

To begin with, when I go to the website, I see it offering an unrealistic time expectation. It offers the following sentence:

Why settle for a GED when you can get a high school diploma in less than 5 days?

Now, folks, this really should be your first clue. There is absolutely no way that a legitimate school can give you a high school diploma in only five days. Don’t worry, though, because some students take as long as four weeks. Same issue: no legitimate school can give you a high school diploma in only four weeks.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s point.

*By the way, if the referenced “high school” can prove that it is a legitimate educational entity, I will be happy to give it a full apology posted here.