Joesph: you asked “Who ever asks for a potential shidduch’s mother’s high school diploma?!”.
Iacisrmma: “I know it will surprise you but their are people out there who ask these absurd questions.”
I didn’t get my high school diploma until 17 years after I finished high school. NO ONE ever asked me if I had a high school diploma. Not shadchanim, not employers, not the seminary/college I went to, not the heads of any seminary programs I taught in.
I failed dikduk and Safah the last semester of high school, and the makeup test was after the day I was making aliyah and my school wouldn’t let me take it earlier so I had no way to take it. (and yes, the irony of failing dikduk and safah right before I made aliyah did not escape me :))
So I always assumed that I didn’t have a high school diploma because of that. I wasn’t sure if you actually need dikduk and safah for a high school diploma, but meanwhile, I was in EY and had no way to find out, and I never needed it anyhow. No one ever asked me if I had one because they just assumed I did.
When I came back to the US 17 years later, I needed a high school diploma for id purposes (to transfer my old driver’s license), so I called my high school, and asked if they had it. They were like, “We don’t have copies of diplomas.” So I said, “not a copy. I never got the original.”
They thought I was nuts asking for a diploma from 17 years before, but they checked, and lo and behold, it was there!!!
Apparently, I had graduated after all and never knew it! Apparently, you don’t need dikduk and safah in order to graduate high school.
When my diploma arrived with my principal a”h’s signature on it, and my friend saw it, she was very confused. “Isn’t_______ dead?” So I said, “now she is, but she wasn’t when she signed this 17 years ago!”.