How to Find Your GED Records

Every state in the U.S. has official General Education Diploma (GED) records for everyone who has earned a GED in that state. Records can be accessed by the GED holders themselves or by others who have obtained their consent.

Reasons to Locate GED Records

If you are applying for a job, for example, you will likely need to provide your GED completion date as verification of your education history. You may also need to provide this information as part of a background check if you volunteering at an organization. Finally, you may need to locate GED records if you are a hiring manager and you need to verify the information provided by a job applicant.

How to Find GED Records

Whether you need a copy of your own GED records or you want to verify that a job applicant truly earned a GED, there are several steps you need to take:

1. Determine in which state the GED credential was earned.
2. Check the state's education website to determine that state's requirements for records requests.
3. Get authorization from the GED holder. Most states require:
   1. Full name and all past last names
   2. Date of birth
   3. Social Security number (some require only last four digits)
   4. Date of records request
   5. Signature of GED holder
   6. Email or mailing address where verification is to be sent
4. Send required information by whichever means the state requests (some have online request forms, but all require the GED holder's signature).

The turnaround time in many states is only 24 hours, but requests should be made as early as possible.

Remember that the only information that will be sent is verification that an official credential was earned and the date on which it was earned. For protection of privacy, no scores are provided.

Common Challenges

In some cases, you may encounter challenges when you request GED records. Each state has its own guidelines for storing and accessing this information, and some are more compliant than others when it comes to granting requests.

The date of testing may affect how easy it is to obtain GED records. Recent records are more likely to be stored in a digital archive, accessible by computer, while older records are more likely to be found in a physical archive that is less easily searched. To help archivists locate older records, you should be prepared to provide as much information as possible, including past names. Fulfilling requests for older records may take additional time, even up to several weeks. You should take this into account when submitting a records request.

If you are looking for your GED records but missing some of the information listed above, you may still be in luck. In Texas, for example, File IDs are attached to records without Social Security numbers. GED holders can work with the state education agency's help desk to find out their File IDs and access their complete records.