February 2014: COA - GED Ceremony Three Months Early!

NEWS

            For Immediate Release

            February 3, 2014

            CONTACT: Lisa Johnson,

Development Officer & External Relations

            Release No: 03LJ-PR-2014

College of The Albemarle is preparing for GED Ceremony – Three Months Early!

The newly revised GED test, which began implementation January 1, 2014, motivated a mass of test-takers to earn their high school diplomas at College of The Albemarle before new exam requirements took effect earlier this month.

With so many graduates – a whopping 293 – seeking to earn their high school equivalency diplomas under the old GED guidelines, COA decided to hold an extra graduation for the group tomorrow, Tuesday, February 4, 2014.

“We normally have a GED graduation in May,” said Erle Solesbee, chief GED examiner at COA. “But we had so many graduates in October, November and December that we wanted to go ahead and do a graduation now.”

Solesbee said the American Council on Education, the non-profit organization that oversees the GED, revamps the high school equivalency test about every 12 years. The new GED test is the latest update of the exam since it began in 1942.

COA was not the only college to see an influx of students seeking to earn their high school diplomas before the new test took effect this year. The GED testing service estimates that nationwide in 2013, there was an increase of about 25 percent in test-takers from the previous year.

One major distinction with the new version, Solesbee said, is that is a more rigorous computer-based test, no longer a pencil-and-paper exam. Some students who recently passed the GED exam in December, had already passed portions of the test previously. Not wanting to lose these earlier results, they turned out to finish their high school degrees before the new computer-based exams began this year.

“Once they redo the test, your old scores are no longer valid,” Solesbee said. “You have to start over. So anytime there are GED changes, there’s always a push to get people in who haven’t completed.”

For more information on the new GED test, contact Erle Solesbee at 335-0821, ext. 2242.

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