A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to College

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may have already read my two posts Me, in Search of Self and The School From Hell, both of which are precursors to this post. I mentioned in the latter that my home situation had deteriorated and I was becoming increasingly suicidal. Someday, I will explain what was going on, but I put it off because I’ll have to relive a lot of trauma, and I’m not ready for that.

So anyhow, I dropped out of school, which dashed all my college dreams, and left home. It was either that, or I was going to kill myself. For about the next ten years or so, I lived several lifetimes, and then the unexpected happened.

For the first few years, I was running from everything, metaphorically speaking. I was running from God, and I was running from the anguish of childhood. For the first time since I had started school, I wasn’t receiving regular counseling and therapy sessions.

Almost from the beginning of my school days, the teachers knew something was wrong. I could not connect with the other children, and the chaos and noise of a classroom would overwhelm me until I would turn inward, and shut out the teacher and everyone around me. In junior high, I learned to don a public mask, but I was still obviously troubled. Nobody could figure out what was wrong, so the schools would schedule regular sessions with school counselors, visiting psychologists, and I would have regular visits to psychiatrists. When I left school and home, all that was something else to try to put behind me – another reason to keep running.

For the first several years that I was on my own, my life was sheer chaos. I would periodically find a wonderful church to attend, and become involved in volunteer work, and for a time, I would begin to stabilize emotionally and mentally. Then I would become overwhelmed with my life circumstances, sink into a black depression, and begin running again.

I was an emotional wreck, and I came to realize that I needed help to get my head straight. I learned that what was then called MHMR (Mental Health and Mental Retardation), offered counseling and therapy on a sliding scale basis, which for me was free. So I contacted them and began regular sessions.

The first few sessions consisted of batteries of psychological tests. My mental state had to be evaluated so they would know what therapeutic approach to take to best help me. Once the proper course of action was determined, I met with a therapist a couple times a week, and once every several weeks I had to meet with a psychiatrist.

This was my routine for a couple of years. Then during a session with the psychiatrist, he said he wanted to schedule me for an IQ test.

Ho-hum. Over the years I’d had IQ tests, every kind of aptitude and cognitive test, intellectual and neuropsychological evaluations, so this was just more of the same. The appointment was made for me, I took the test, then went in for the follow-up.

I walked into the psychiatrist’s office and he was excited. I’d never seen a psychiatrist get excited. They were always so stoic and dispassionate. But in this meeting, this psychiatrist was grinning and kept going on about how high my IQ was. It was kind of embarrassing.

Here’s the thing: IQ in and of itself isn’t very important to me. The people I have valued most in my life have been those who are down-to-earth, compassionate, empathetic, wise, and have a good sense of humor. They are genuine and sincere, have practical skills and a creative mindset. It doesn’t matter if they dropped out of third grade or have a PhD. These are the people I’m comfortable with.

Don’t get me wrong – for the sake of my mental well being, I must also be able to interact with intellectuals and scholarly types.

But to continue the story…

The counselors knew of my distress at having missed out on college, so now they told me, “You should go ahead and apply for college”.

I reminded them that I had dropped out of school and had no diploma. “You don’t need a diploma”, they said. “You can get in with a GED”.

I never knew that! I felt a mixture of hope and trepidation. Could I get back into the routine of attending school?

The counselors assured me I could do it. They told me many people attend in their 40s and 50s. I wasn’t 30 yet. I was certainly capable of adapting to the school life.

The counselors scheduled the GED test for me, and when I got there, a crowd was waiting to begin the test. I was so nervous. I don’t remember much except the entire session was lengthy.

A few days later I got called into the mental health clinic because they wanted to discuss the test results with me. They gave me the most unexpected news of my life.

I made the second highest GED score anyone had ever received in Texas. That got my attention.

I could make no sense of it. I’m certain plenty of very bright people have taken the GED test, and surely many have received high scores. How could I have gotten the “second highest” score? That was some 40 years ago, and it has never really sunk into my mind. It has never seemed real to me.

As the clinic arranged for me to take the college entrance exam, I was in a state of apprehension. None of it seemed real.

The big day came, and I took the exam. I was certain I wasn’t going to pass. But as it turned out, I passed with flying colors in all sections… except… I did not score well enough in math. The university told me I would need to take their remedial math course.

If there was any danger at all of my head swelling up because of my GED score, that brought me back down to earth with a thud.

I had no idea that colleges even had remedial math courses, but I have since learned that most of them do. So very many incoming students are smart in everything else, but have weak math skills. I have also since learned that many brilliant scientists have subpar math skills. Even Einstein needed help from mathematicians throughout his career. He came up with the theories himself, but he needed assistance to develop the math formulas to go with them. Having mediocre math skills doesn’t mean a person isn’t smart. It just means they have mediocre math skills.

So anyhow, I took the math classes until my score got high enough, and the university gave me scholarships to pay for everything. I became a college student!

Here is where I end this chapter of my life. In the future, I’ll relate some of my college experiences.

to be continued…

For anyone interested, I found a copy of a GED study guide, although this is updated for the 2020s, and is probably significantly different than the one I had ~40 years ago.

Is there anyone out there in readerland who has access to the Texas GED score stats? I couldn’t find anything from googling, so I assume it’s not publicly available information.

I’m not looking for anyone’s identity. Just maybe something like a chart of the top 25 scores with ages, years and genders. I took the test sometime in the mid 1980s.

Surely, by now one or more persons have beat my score, but I’m terribly curious. Like I said above, it’s never really sunk into my mind, but maybe seeing myself in the middle of a list would make it more real.

If anyone has that access, please let me know.