There are several other kinds of accreditation, the most common being the approval of a state government or one of the seven regional bodies that have been doing this since accreditation became popular in the early 20th century. There was a time, perhaps a generation or so ago, when accreditation was the only way colleges had of making sure that a student did not come from a "diploma mill." It comes as a surprise to most people, but accreditation agencies have never had the job of assessing the quality of an educational institution, only its organizational structure and longevity. In the 1930s and '40s, diploma mills would pop up and take money, then disappear overnight. This kind of school is rare today.

The important thing to remember about traditional accreditation is this: every public high school is accredited by its state and its regional association, yet many of them are terrible. The colleges are quite aware of this, and when they want to know how well prepared a student is for the demands of college, they look at standardized scores, such as SAT and ACT (often called "college entrance" exams). As is well known, colleges welcome home schooled and other nontraditional students because they tend to do better than regular students, despite their getting an education from nonaccredited sources.

It is possible that you could run into a college or even a source of financial aid that would discriminate against you because your diploma was not approved by one of the traditional agencies, but the odds are against it. In the many years of operation of our school, for example, we have not encountered such a problem. You are much more likely to run into a problem because of your grades or your college entrance exams. Fortunately, even if one college is not interested in you, there are many that will be.