I dropped out of high school and managed to get into college twice with a 1540 SAT (on the old 1600 point scale). Dropped out of both colleges. School bores me. I will say though, that I wish I'd finished high school. Mostly because a 16-year-old kid with a ton of free time and a penchant for drugs and mischief isn't a good thing.

i dropped out of HS in my 2nd year, totally hated it. i smoked pot and played videogames for 2 years, got my ged and started working. 7 years later i realized that im going nowhere in the jobs i was getting and wanted a degree. now i have a 3.9 gpa in a community college and i kinda like school. ive had world class professors and complete **** ones, but im pretty sure thats gonna happen anywhere.

if i managed to finish HS like i was supposed to and went right into college i would probably have been worse off like the idiots i have classes with who write papers about smoking pot in their dads car and wondering why theyre failing at life.

just make sure you can get into a school that has the degree you want (or options for other ones you may be interested in).

I dropped out of HS to go to Brasil and play soccer my junior year. Ended up staying down there for about 2 years cuz I got accepted into an exchange program. I was supposed to be going to school, but only went for the first three months and then decided I wanted to travel. The school people really liked me so they sent my transcript back to my school in the US with perfect scores so I ended up graduating still. Got back to the US and took the SAT and ACT and did well. I have applied to school three years in a row now and never gone.
Though this year I applied to University of San Francisco and UC Santa Cruz and got accpeted.

I tested out of HS the beginning of my junior year. Got pretty lucky with jobs and I'm sorta thinking about going back to school. I have exp and a job in the field I want to be in, but I really want that piece of paper.

Back in ancient times, I was a top student in high school. My school didn't have a 4. scale or anything like that - old 100% scale, nothing was weighted. I finished with a mid 90s/100 gpa. 6th in a class of about 200 kids, taking all honors and AP classes. High school was just easy for me. 1310 on SAT (back when that was a good score, before they started weighting/curving the numbers and 1600 meant you got every single question correct which was practically impossible), 32 on ACT. Got into every college I applied to.

Went to an Ivy League college, and had a bit of a wake up call about "oh **** you actually have to work to get good grades here", maybe didn't handle the freedom too well at first but managed to pull my head out of my ass in time to pull up my gpa to 3.0. (I had one semester where my GPA was 1.7. OOF.) My in-major GPA was much better, 3.6 if I remember correctly.

Took a couple years in the workforce, went to grad school and got really good grades (not sure if grad school was just easier because fewer BS prerequisites to take so all the classes were interesting and relevant, or because of the difference between good state school [Texas] and Ivy League [Cornell].)

Working and making a pretty good living, not using either of my degrees but I know I am where I am because of them so it's ok.

My biggest piece of advice to people is to pick a career, not a major, and make sure you have a well-plotted path from major->graduation->career. Make sure there are jobs in your chosen field. Network early and often. Internships as much as possible. Where you go to school, and even your grades, matter little compared to that stuff.

And here I am, went all the way through hs, straight into college. I did a lot of slacking though in hs, took a lot of art classes and easy classes where I never had to do anything. Made college a weird adjustment, because now I actually have to try, and I have the absolute worst study habits ever.

And I can't believe how much I spent at the bar last night. That is the reason I try to only pay cash when I go, because if I had opened a tab, I would have just kept going. Night ended pretty rad though, with some sorority girls giving me a walking taco.

I'm two years through college and am pretty bored with my major. Thinking of switching to bus mgmt and getting the hell out of here. Really don't want to be here for another four years.

I dropped out of H.S in my Junior year (with some sophomore classes), got my G.e.d in 3 months after dropping out. I was quite disappointed on how stupidly easy it was to acquire it, and yet some of the students in my class had such a hard time passing it.

After school, I started working. When I reached 21 I got into the wine industry, took courses for wine (which weren't easy and still passed with high scores). I love what I'm doing so far, but at the same time I always think about going back to college because I know if I go back I can do well. But I cant seem to have the drive to go, maybe its because of all the horrible stories I hear people wasting a **** load of money on college and cant find a job for what they studied for- and are in debt working 10-15 dollars an hours doing a job they hate to pay off their loans. Maybe its a New York thing.

My Dad never graduated from High School (dropped out to enlist during WWII), never got a GED but somehow managed to earn a PhD at McGill in Montreal and had a long career as a research chemist and post-graduate professor. I don't think you can do stuff like that anymore...

I'm seeing this a lot of this since everybody my age is graduating. I don't regret not finishing school, I really enjoy going to school, but I did not want to continue if I was just going to school for the sake of going to school.

3.3 GPA through HS.
2 years of CC cuz I was poor, received my Associates with a 3.7 GPA, Deans List
Went to Michigan State, came away with a 1.9 my year, not muh better my second. (it was my first time away from home, I could party and drink, it was also the beginning age of Napster and I spent most days downloading a ton of mp3s.)
Took a year off, went to work full time at the MSU library.
Switched my major from Studio Arts to Communications for a year.
Went back to Studio Art - the great thing about all of this was working full time on campus meant I was getting a free education.
Left MSU and Michigan the following year with 20 credits to go to move to AZ with the love of my life.

Never finished school.
Now work in Analytics for a small company in the pet industry, spending my entire day in microsoft excel.

Personally, I feel college is a great way to show your future employer that you have what it takes to commit to something, hanker down and get a job done. This could also come from past experience. For me, my current employer cared nothing about where I went to school or what I studied or what my GPA was, they just wanted to know how much experience I had doing this or that. Fortunately I can read and know how to use google, so when I don't understand something, I can learn about it. And there ya go people, never stop learning!

Yeah in general, unless you have a clearcut path from college to career, that transitions sucks for most people. I'm getting a BA in Communications and kinda sorta don't know what field I want to work in.

Love the stories though.

A what? Oh, and I went to college. Now I work freelance.

You can do anything with a degree in communications.

One of the best salesmen at our company has a degree in communications. He misses some details here and there, but he can talk your ear off and make you feel good about yourself, so at the end of the day, you forget about his shortcomings and buy the crap.

It's actually a great thing to major in, 95% of the jobs out there require you to communicate effectively with others...being good at that, goes a long way.

Dude, best things ever. Take a bag of fritos, add taco meat, cheese, lettuce, etc, grab a fork and dig in. So good. Especially at the end of a night of drinking, when served by girls from the hottest sorority on campus.

Frito pie?

Here I was thinking it was some crazy sexual shenanigans.

finished HS with great GPA and test scores
just finished my BS in Mech.Eng. from a top 5 US ME college with a great GPA
currently work for a company that makes big flying things
hoping to do grad school in the next couple years once i figure out what my niche is

i knew i wanted to be an engineer since forever, and i just kinda rolled on through HS with that in mind... picked an ME degree for the flexibility, and my junior year i realized airplanes are really friggin cool and was fortunate enough to land a good job straight out of school

I"m sorry man.

i wish i wouldve done engineering instead of science, not even necessarily chem, electical and mech is kewl too
in the work place i find im more interested in optimization and scale up then brand new synthesis.

also morgan aren;t u a physics student? what do u wanna do after college?

Get paid.

right...

if u are considering switching to bus. mgmt or like MBA I would advise against it as you can move into those roles after x amount of years into the same industry. it takes a special person (with a BS degree) to be able to effectively manage and supervise scientists and engineers; you need to understand what they are doing.

just sayin if you tough out your BS degree you can move into those roles with industry experience or post BS MBA/law school/whatever. no one wants to be a lab rat forever but if u have brains and scientific curiosity i would advise you to finish off your technical degree, whatever it can be. the skillset you get with a sci/eng degree will make u infinitely more marketable then a liberal arts degree or bus. mgmt.

I would have taken something like that from those girls too. And I'd never heard it called Frito pie hah. I guess thats pretty much exactly what it is.

I hear ya, trust me.

did HS and a BA (Psych) w/ ok grades.

if i had it to do over again, i'd have learned a skill / trade (nursing or construction) and gone for higher education later, when i figured out what i really wanted to do. at 42 i've worked in civil and forensic mental health, law enforcement and corrections. real turning point for me was in '92 when i took my shiny new degree to the Marines to sign up for officer candidate school (my dream at the time) and was told that they weren't hiring (drawdown). now i always have a backup plan...

today i continued to set up the Nashbar 105 grouped roadie (darn you 20% coupons!) and went through the 722 i'll be using on the local Tweed Ride/pub crawl in April.

I was homeschooled up to HS and I realized being taught something in school was way easier than trying to teach myself. Ended up with a bunch of college options due to gpa and me being tall but chose the school I am at now for athletic reasons over academics (dumbest decision I've made yet). lucky for me my scholarship isnt getting renewed here next year so I am in the process of finding someplace where I can study what I want and prepare for life.

really wish I would have been more mature in my decision making process but hey, live and learn.
best of luck to all the c/o 2013 fixaye ryderz