Possible plot credibility problem with Cider House Rules?

I know that breaking the rules when necessary is an important plot element in the movie. However, I think that Dr. Larch's breaking the rules by fabricating a fake degree for Homer Wells was unnecessary.

When Homer Wells leaves the orphanage to "see the world" why doesn't Homer simply apply for medical school? If he had all of the training that Dr. Larch says he has, he could probably convince the people in the medical school to overlook the fact that he had no previous schooling. After all, this happened to an actual famous person in history (i.e. Ramanujan who had no formal schooling but convinced a college in England that he was qualified to do graduate work in mathematics). Or if he couldn't convince them, he could get a high school equivalency diploma relatively quickly. With his training, he should be able to graduate from medical school quite easily. It's also likely that he would then be exposed to training that is ahead of Dr. Larch's training (since it would be more current). Afterwards, Homer would then have an actual legitimate medical degree.

Instead, he gets a fake degree and runs the risk that if he makes a serious mistake and gets found out, the orphanage could get sued or heavily fined, or worse, shut down entirely.