re: OT--Georgia's HOPE Scholarship Q&A

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Any pitfalls or issues to be wary of?

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I graduated two years ago and I never had any issues issues really, but I would suggest trying build a nice GPA buffer for the first year to year and a half with some core classes, but save all the general electives until you are out of core classes, no reason to knock them out of the way early because they can be very useful in inflating a GPA during a tough semester. I would also recommend trying to space out some of the more challenging courses, maybe take one during the summer, or mix in some of the harder courses with general electives if you are out of core classes.

I would recommend utilizing the 7 hours of drops that HOPE allows for if you are in danger of dipping below a 3.0 120 hours is all you need to graduate and since HOPE covers 127 you can drop two classes it will still last for the entire length of the degree.

While HOPE does cover a decent chunk of tuition you will still have to pay about $1,200 to cover the remaining tuition per semester, and also at least another $250-300 on text books and other dumbass "learning" tools that they force you to buy in order to complete your coursework. HOPE does not provide a book allowance anymore so there is really no incentive to buy books new and from the university bookstore. If you can get away with purchasing/renting older editions of text books from Amazon or Chegg, I would strongly recommend going this route unless they are specifically told otherwise because the older editions are often a fraction of the price.