Claiming Your Off-State GED Credential
If you’ve taken the GED exam and have confirmed that you’ve passed the test, then you’re on your way for a future with broader horizons. A GED credential is honored by most educational and employment institutions, and it carries practically the same weight as a high school diploma. The credential may be sent to you in two formats; a transcript and/or a diploma. You usually won’t have to wait for long before you receive your credential, as it is issued after a mere two-week period of test evaluations and confirmation. However, if you happened to cross state borders during such time, your credential may be sent to the wrong address, especially if you intend to temporarily reside in the new state.
The first thing to do is to get in touch immediately with your assigned GED testing center, preferably before you leave the state. While all the testing centers within the country follow standard operating procedures, yours may observe a different regulation, such as an inability to issue GED credentials for off-state claims. If you contact your testing center and are consequently informed that this is the case, you can do two things. You can postpone the trip and wait for the credential to arrive, or you can request the post office to forward all incoming mail to your new destination. Both are viable options, but do remember that standard mail deliveries are non-traceable, and there is a chance that yours could get lost in the unsent pile.
Take note that your default address (the one you provided on the application) is usually the first and only destination of your credentials, including your diploma. Many states take no responsibility for lost credentials resulting from cases such as a sudden change in address; you’d definitely want to stay for longer at your original address. Fortunately though, many states do accommodate alternate forwarding addresses, even if they are located off of the state. Otherwise, you can still request a reissue of your transcript at an address you specify. For a transcript reissue, you may visit the state’s GED site and fill up a request form. You are also required to place a fee for the service, about five dollars for each transcript copy, and up to 25 dollars for a copy of your diploma (you are usually limited to one copy for every separate request). There is also an addition five-dollar charge (on average) for document processing. You can also visit the testing center in person for your request; bring valid proof of identification.
Once you receive your transcript or diploma, immediately check for mistakes in the entries; in case there are errors, correct these by striking them out with a single horizontal line, and print the correction underneath or above the errors. Then mail it back to the source provided on the front page of the diploma; the corrections and reissuing comes at no cost to you since you are not responsible for the error, except in certain cases such as changing your legal name after you take the test. A new diploma and transcript will then be resent to you within the following weeks.