Where to Prepare for and Take the GED Test in San Francisco

The GED (General Educational Development Test) is an equivalency test that serves as a substitute for a high school diploma in terms of getting a job, or gaining admission to a college. The test covers five general subjects - reading, writing, social studies, science and math - and the state of California requires you to be 18 years old. There are certain circumstances under which a 17 year old may take the test in California, such as having been out of school for more than sixty consecutive days or presently being incarcerated in a correctional facility, but they will not actually receive the equivalency certificate or be able to use it for a job or college until they turn eighteen.

Obtaining a GED in San Francisco mostly centers around the City College of San Francisco, which is the local community college. CCSF offers both testing for the GED, and a formal program that students can take to prepare for the test. Students who test for a GED at City College are not required to take the school's preparatory program to test for it. The formal program consists of eleven separate classes handled by the Transitional Studies Department. Tuition is charged for these classes, at $20 per unit, but low-income students can get the California Board of Governor's waiver to wholly waive the tuition. GED testing cannot be done online per state and federal law, but some classes that satisfy credits for the GED program can be taken in online format.

Students who want to do self-paced preparation for free may be better off looking at free resources on the internet, of which there are several good ones. FreeEd.net offers regular online classes, which have an instructor and enable you to interact with other students, completely for free. This is probably the best online resource there is for free GED test preparation. Two other sites that are good to look at are GEDPractice.com from Steck-Vaughan, which gives you a randomly generated practice test similar to the real GED tests employed by most states, and GEDForFree.com, which offers a free automated self-paced course that covers all five GED subjects (unlike the FreeEd course there is no instructor or other students, it is simply done in passive format through web pages.) One last good online resource for GED prep is from publisher McGraw-Hill, who offer comprehensive online textbooks for each of the five subjects covered on the GED. Unfortunately they don't seem to have a hub page for all five, but you can find the pages at www.gedwriting.com, www.gedsocialstudies.com, www.gedscience.com, www.gedreading.com and www.gedmatch.com.

One last resource to check out is the local libraries, which have a number of books devoted to preparation for the GED. The San Francisco city library system is the obvious first choice, but San Francisco State University, City College of San Francisco and UC Berkeley all have libraries that are open to the public. Usually, only students are allowed to check out books at these libraries, but you are free to use the libraries during the day and to study with the books while in the library.

Eventually, when you are ready to take the GED test, you will likely wind up at the CCSF GED testing center, which is at 33 Gough Street (just off of Market Street near 7th downtown.) The cost is presently $75 to take all five GED examination subtests. $46.50 of this test fee may be waived if you are currently receiving any form of public assistance (such as SSI, unemployment or food stamps), or if you meet with a CCSF counselor who determines you to be financially needy. If you need to re-take any of the subtests later, you simply pay a $10 fee for each test you need to re-take. Tests are conducted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at various times between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., but call the GED Testing Center first at # (415) 561-1824 to verify your time and make an appointment ahead of time. Good luck!