You're only seventeen

October 2, 2009 4:50 PM

How would one (hypothetically) go back to high school?

Let's say you're a couple years out of high school, still look young enough to pass as 17, and want to re-live senior year, Never-Been-Kissed-style.

What documents would one need to register in a public school, and could these documents be forged?

Also, how illegal would this be?

Just wondering :)

posted by DeltaForce to human relations (20 comments total)

Other than research for a lousy Drew Barrymore movie, I can't imagine one would ever want to regress like this.

But to enroll you'd need records from the school you're transferring from and an adult (or accomplice) to enroll you.

But why?
posted by dzaz at 4:55 PM on October 2

To start, you'd need to forge your birth certificate and your immunization records to reflect your new age, transcripts from your "old" school, and maybe even your sports physical if you wanted to compete in high school sports. You'd probably also need someone to pretend to be your parent/guardian.
posted by lilac girl at 4:56 PM on October 2

Oooh, I always wanted to do this. I don't know about documents and all that but to bypass the illegality of it - hook up with the local police and go undercover as a narc or something.

There was one kid - senior year - and it was rumored that he was undercover or something. I don't know if was true or not but ya never know.
posted by Sassyfras at 4:57 PM on October 2

I wish I could find them, but Google is failing me, but I'm certain of at least two cases in the past 10 years or so where this has happened, where the person in question was playing high school sports. Try a Lexis/Nexis search and you can read up on the cases.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:58 PM on October 2

In a word, very illegal.
posted by mediocre at 5:00 PM on October 2 [2 favorites]

Thanks for the replies so far. I wonder if there is any way to do this legally then, with the school knowing what's up, and without having to go through the police.

Seeing as how most people just want to get out of high school, I'm sure there aren't many who would want to go back. So if one did want to go back, for a semester or a year, perhaps the school would simply allow it?
posted by DeltaForce at 5:11 PM on October 2

Huh. Couldn't you just enroll in a high school, telling the administration that you want to upgrade your grades or take maths and sciences you didn't get before? Then, since the school office isn't going to be broadcasting your circumstances to anyone, it would just be a matter of letting the other students think you're a 17-year-old transfer student, and you wouldn't have done anything illegal.
posted by orange swan at 5:18 PM on October 2

If you believe Cameron Crowe, the way to do it is to get approval from the administration. In today's climate, unlikely but still possible. No doubt it would come with strings.
posted by plinth at 5:20 PM on October 2

I think there would be way too many liability issues with grown-ass adults wandering the same halls as a bunch of 14 year olds in what's supposed to be a safe place for them. Can you imagine the nightmare if the adult misbehaved in any way? Or was accused of misbehaving? This is why most high schools offer night school for adults who need a high-school education.
posted by amethysts at 5:21 PM on October 2

perhaps the school would simply allow it?

Maybe a private school would, or a well-funded public school, but no typical public school I know of has the time or resources (manpower and money, not to mention the physical space) to deal with an extra student who really shouldn't be there.

You might have to approach a school with a more alternative approach, like the ones mentioned in this thread recently.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 5:24 PM on October 2

you want to upgrade your grades or take maths and sciences you didn't get before

This is what community colleges (especially their remedial and/or GED programs) are for, at least in the US.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 5:25 PM on October 2

I work at a vocational high school and I do some stuff with what's called the Adult Diploma Program. In short, this basically means kids who are between 18 and ... 20-something (can't remember) who want to get their high school diploma. They take classes after regular school time which are especially geared towards kids who are more mature, who have jobs, who may have kids, but for whatever reason just didn't graduate from high school. They work with counselors who really work to help these kids get their acts together and get whatever they're looking for out of the program, but hopefully to graduate. This program is different from a GED program in that the kids actually receive a diploma from school, so it's not a graduate equivalency, it's actually graduating which for some of them is a big deal. Once you're over teh age for this program I think GED is your only option. I'm not sure if kids could go get their GED instead of this diploma situation, but the diploma program is seen as more supportive for kids who may have special needs and situations.

So I know this doesn't speak to your specifically outlined situation, but if you wanted to do this legitimately in my school you'd talk to the adult diploma people and you'd take classes after school because it's presumed you'd have a job and a life to work around. You'd have transcripts from wherever you did go to school and if for some reason those weren't in existence you'd have to test into whatever situation you were angling for. The administration has very specific educational and legal responsibilities to minors which is maybe 95% of the high school population here. They're not going to let you pull one over on the student body. They'd let you come in and work with them to figure out how to manage your educational desires, but the never-been-kissed stuff isn's something they care about.
posted by jessamyn at 5:25 PM on October 2 [1 favorite]

Where I'm from you can redo high school without any issues if you're only a few years older (up to about 20). You can always tell the returnees because they don't have to wear a uniform (although some of them choose to), but there are plenty of other, preferable options for getting an equivalent qualification. Why would you want to? Have you looked into the alternatives (GED, STAT test, community college, TAFE, FE college - your post and profile don't indicate your location)?
posted by goo at 5:34 PM on October 2

First of all, this has happened. People have snuck in to highschools and pretended to be students. While I'm sure it's illegal, I doubt most Highschools would really check for this, because it would be so unusual.

Second of all I know of one instance where an anthropologist returned to school to 'study' the students by sitting in on their classes as if she was a student (everyone knew who she was, though). She ended up going to all the parties and stuff too. I think there was an FPP about it here.

Obviously if you just want an HS diploma, you could study for and take the GED test.
posted by delmoi at 5:45 PM on October 2

DeltaForce, not a direct answer, but a reason why I'd think it highly unlikely any school would allow this:

Worst case scenario: Neil Havens Rodreick II, a 29-year-old convicted pedophile, posed as a seventh-grader listening to the name of Casey Price.

"Mingus Springs, it turned out, wasn't the first school Rodreick had infiltrated since he'd returned to Arizona. It was the fourth."

His badly forged papers made the school suspicious:
"Across campus, school counselor Julie Bradshaw was in the front office, sifting through Casey's paperwork. Things weren't making sense there either. She'd found two birth dates, a German birth certificate that listed the boy's weight in pounds, and custody papers from Riverside, California, assigning guardianship to Casey's grandfather and listing the attorney general of Oklahoma as attorney. (...) By the time someone in a silver Dodge Neon picked Casey up that afternoon, the Mingus Springs staff were convinced they had an abduction victim on their hands and that Casey was a teenager in trouble."(Source)
posted by lioness at 5:52 PM on October 2

Here's someone who did it:

http://www.amazon.com/High-School-David-Owen/dp/0670371491
posted by Kevin S at 6:24 PM on October 2

Someone from my high school is currently doing this:

http://goingbacktomarlborough.blogspot.com/
posted by jennyesq at 6:33 PM on October 2

I wonder if there is any way to do this legally then, with the school knowing what's up, and without having to go through the police.

Undercover cops and reporters have done this many times... so yes, it's possible.
posted by rokusan at 10:29 PM on October 2

There's an episode of Errol Morris' First Person about a guy who did this for 12 years or something like that (and also spent ears arguing with the judges of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?).
posted by cmoj at 8:14 AM on October 3

When I was a senior in high school way back when, there was a guy who had graduated 11 years before taking some classes - in the daytime. Not sure how many classes. "Post-graduate" was the term actually used. This was in New York state.
posted by jgirl at 2:42 PM on October 4