You must be 19 years old to take the GED. Seventeen and eighteen year old Minnesotans must obtain an age waiver before they can take the GED test. For more information, click here to go to the Minnesota Department of Education website and scroll down to Age Waiver Form and Instructions.
What are Accommodations?
A disability is defined by federal law as a substantial limitation, in a major life activity, as compared with most people in the general population. Major life activities include activities of daily living such as breathing, working, learning, seeing, hearing, and reading.
GED Testing Service provides reasonable and appropriate accommodations to individuals with documented disabilities who demonstrate a need for accommodations. For GED Testing Service Accommodation information, click here.
There are four different disability categories that qualify for requesting GED testing accommodations:
- Learning and Other Cognitive Disabilities
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
- Psychological and Psychiatric Disorders
- Physical Disabilities and Chronic Health Conditions
To apply for accommodations, you must complete a GED Testing Service Accommodation Request Form.
To complete the Request for Accommodation form ONLINE, you must create a “MyGED” account. Instructions can be found here on how to find and complete the Request for Accommodation form in your MyGED account.
Please note: You must attach supporting documentation, completed by a qualified evaluator, in order to request GED Testing Accommodations. If an assessment has already been completed, each of the four disability categories have differing timelines for acceptable documentation. (Acceptable timelines are on the specific accommodation forms.)
- If approved accommodations are extra time and/or breaks, the testing can now be scheduled online (rather than by phone). Any other accommodation needs to be scheduled by phone (for instance, use of a private room, assistive technology, a reader or scribe).
- Students who have vision loss or blindness have the option to use JAWS (reads text to speech) or Zoom Text Magnifier (provides magnification of text) during GED testing. Both of these options must be requested and approved ahead of time.
- There are paper versions of the GED test that are available for certain disabling conditions. Request for use of the paper version must be requested and approved ahead of time.
- It may be helpful for the GED candidate to have an “advocate” to help navigate the application process, such as a teacher. The name of an advocate must be added to the application. Any information, such as approval or denial from the GED Testing Service/PearsonVUE will be sent to both the advocate and the candidate.
