No scrounging for extra tickets.
No hour-long procession of students.
No trouble finding parking.
No mortar-board cap, tassel or matching gown.
And many times, not even a diploma.
When home-schooled students graduate, the emphasis is less on the pomp and more on the circumstance.
"I felt that I was passing a milestone, and it was nice to recognize all the years of work my mom and dad had worked with me," said Peter Bramsen, of Wheaton, who graduated earlier this month from his home-school program. "It was about me, but it was also for them, too."
It's not known exactly how many children complete their home-school education each year in the county or state, because neither the regional school superintendent's office in Wheaton nor state education officials keep track of it.
But just because public educators don't track them doesn't mean the students get no public recognition.
Bramsen's ceremony was held along with two other home-school graduations at a local church.
The program consisted of music, presentations, speeches by the graduates and a keynote address. In the past, the group has booked area legislators to deliver a keynote speech. This year's featured speaker was supposed to be state Rep. Tom Johnson of West Chicago, but the budget debate in Springfield kept him away.
The food at the events is often the costliest feature of the ceremony.
"Most of the expense comes from the party afterward," said Bramsen's mother, Annette. "It's kind of like doing a wedding because there's a lot of detail."
Naperville's Jonathan Wolfson ended his high school education this year and doesn't have any formal ceremony planned.
"We'll probably do something at the end of July when we have some relatives coming in from out of town," he said. "It'll be like an open house or a get-together with friends."
Home-school graduation ceremonies are as varied as the students they are for. Because they are more personal than a public or private school's event, the process can take any shape.
"We didn't have a limited number of seats, and we could invite whoever we wanted," said Rhonda Covarrubias of West Chicago.
Her son, Matthew, graduated in the ceremony with Bramsen.
"Matthew's two sisters sang in the ensemble group, and it was nice his sisters could help with that," she said.
For many home-school parents, the ceremony is like a graduation present to their children.
"We had twins graduate, so we felt like we had to do double, and that was a big deal," said Cathy Walker of Warrenville. "I'm not going to have much (money) left for weddings if I keep doing them at this scale."
The fetes for Walker graduations, she said, are all in the numbers. Generally 60 to 100 people show up for the short ceremony and stay for the party afterwards, which includes a substantial array of food.
Walker has home schooled all six of her children; so far, three have graduated. Her son Brooks will graduate next year, and the family is already planning for it.
"Any excuse to get together with their friends, so it's no problem getting their help," she said of her graduates.
Brooks said his goal isn't the ceremony, but the diploma.
"All I really care about is getting the transcript and diploma and sending it off to a college and getting accepted," he said.
A ceremony for a lone graduate is apparently a little more common than group ceremonies. But with the increase in home-school support groups and cooperative education panels, many students and parents are choosing the more traditional mass pupil graduation.
Annette Bramsen said group ceremonies for home-schoolers are a far cry from traditional graduation ceremonies because every family has a hand in the process.
"We do a few things that are unusual," she said. "The students took a vote on what songs they want sung, and every graduate had a presentation from their parents about them."
Diplomas were also handed out at Bramsen's graduation. But in some cases, that presentation is left out of the ceremony.
"You can make your own diplomas or order them from the Home-School Legal Defense Association," Wolfson said. "I'm not making one for myself."
That one piece of paper that most high school graduates look forward to getting during their education is widely regarded as insignificant in the home-school community.
"Most colleges only want a transcript," said Virginia Vagt, co-president of a local home-school support network called Christian Home Oriented Individualized Curriculum Experience. "There's a standardized transcript form. If you have a transcript that is easily understood by (a college), they're usually fine."
Any suspicions about grading impropriety can easily be qualified by standardized tests, which many home-schooling parents look forward to.
"Here's an advantage of home-schooling," Vagt said. "When you get the (standardized test) scores back, you get a tremendous amount of detail."
The testing agencies send back the scores as well as information on specific areas of difficulty for the test taker. When the tests are given at public schools, for example, that information is usually lumped together for all the test takers.
The relationship between most colleges and home-schooled students has blossomed in recent years because both groups have become better educated about each other, Vagt said. Universities are better equipped these days to handle admission requests because home-schooling has become more common, she said.
If there are questions about a particular class on the transcript, many home-schoolers also provide the name of the textbook used to teach the course.
"Before five years ago I wouldn't necessarily call it discrimination, I would call it 'we don't know what to do with you and we don't know what you did,'æ" Vagt said of the college application process for home-schooled students. "But now there's a track record, and schools are taking more and more of them."
Parents and students are very aware of the types of courses and number of credits required on the transcripts of individual colleges.
Many home-schooled students already have some collegiate experience by the time they finish their high school education because they've taken a class or two at a local junior college, Vagt noted.
"They go to (College of DuPage) because it's very welcoming and they are helpful to home-school students," Vagt said. "They also are able to fill out courses they usually can't get at home."
Wolfson has taken college courses for a couple years now and said that might have taken some of the luster from any desire to have a graduation ceremony.
"Maybe when I'm done with college we'll do something a little bigger, but I just don't think this is that big of a deal," he said.