UK equivalent of high school diploma

[sarahmac]

Does anyone know which UK qualifications (and how many) would be evaluated as equivalent to a high school diploma? 

For those unfamiliar with the UK system, we don't get any kind of school leaving certificate. Instead, we take subject-specific qualifications: GCSEs at age 16 and A Levels at age 18. 

I've Googled around and not sure if I'm looking in the wrong place but I can't seem to find a concrete answer; one person said it'd be a Level 3 qualification (i.e. A Level), another said three GCSE passes equate to a high school diploma, everyone seems to have a different idea.

Considering some US colleges offer credit for A Levels, and that school-leaving age was 16 when I did my qualifications, I'm guessing it's more likely to be GCSEs / Level 2 qualifications, but not sure how many.

Reason for asking: I'd like to pursue a degree through UMPI, and it looks like they need a high school diploma? For personal reasons it's looking like getting my hands on my GCSE and A Level certificates for evaluation will cause so much bother that it might be much quicker and easier to just get a new qualification for the sake of having a high school diploma equivalent.

It is GCSE. It depends on the equivalency evaluator how many, but most base it on 3-5. WES, who are one of the biggest, state on their website they evaluate a minimum of 3 GCSEs as equivalent. Most people do around 7-9 at least, so well over that bar.

A Levels (which each have several classes inside for those Americans who are unaware, they are not like single class APs) align closer with Associates-type study. It depends on the college how many credits they award, but when I looked at a couple before it varied between 30 and 45 for me.

That said, content-wise someone who has sat GCSE Bio and Chem recently and scored decently could easily pass the CLEPs for those subjects. There's also a CLEP for Precalculus, which is the focus of the GCSE in Mathematics along with Trig/Algebra/Geometry since A Level Math starts with Calc 1. People stationed at the US bases in the UK regularly have kids graduate from local schools with GCSEs and go to college at 16 (which is what a bunch of my friends did), and some of the kids sit the corresponding AP tests using the on-base HS as a test center.

So YMMV with how much you actually get out of your GCSE level knowledge.