Quick Advice from College Students (Part 2)

"Get organized. If you plan on applying to multiple colleges. Know the deadlines. It would be silly to miss out on potential money, scholarships, opportunities and honors. Looking back, I wish I would have had a separate email account set up for college stuff. As a senior, you get so many emails from colleges. Sometimes, it gets confusing and hard to use if you have one email for everything."

- Julian (John Hopkins University)

"Get a head start on applying to scholarships. Believe it or not, there is a plethora of scholarships available to high school juniors."

- Duc (Georgia Tech)

"Take the SAT/ACT starting sophomore year. That way you have time to take it over and over so you can get a score you're happy with and don't have to stress over one sitting of the exam in order to get the score you need."

- Mary Katherine (University of Alabama)

How to Calculate your HOPE/ Zell Miller GPA

   Calculating your HOPE/Zell Miller scholarship GPA may seem like a confusing task, but it is actually fairly simple. Before you calculate your actual GPA, there are a couple of things that you need to know:

• Only core classes (math, literature, science, social studies, and foreign language*) count towards your HOPE GPA. *Foreign language courses only count if you're on a college preparatory or higher diploma
• Know if your school weights classes. For example, my former high school added 3 points for Honors classes and 5 for AP classes.
• HOPE uses a GPA on a 4.0 scale

How to Calculate: 

• Have a list of all of your classes and your grades in front of you.
• Go through and mark through all non-core classes
• Subtract the weight points from each class that has one, leaving you with your actual class grade
• For your HOPE scholarship GPA, use the following scale:
• A= 4.0
• B= 3.0
• C= 2.0
• D= 1.0
• F= 0.0
• For each AP/IB class that you have taken, add .5 to your GPA for that class, not to exceed a 4.0. So, if you made a C in AP Statistics, your GPA for that class is a 2.5.
• Now, figure out if each class is a 1 credit class or a .5 credit class. Multiply each grade converted to the 4.0 scale by the credit. (For example, in the picture found below, my freshman year .5 credit Government class multiplied by the 4.0 that I received gives me a 2 in this column)
• Add up the total number of credits attempted.
• Divide the (Credit times the GPA of that class) by the (total number of credits attempted)
• Voila! Your HOPE/ Zell Miller GPA! 

Here's an example: 

    Below is my HOPE grade report available on Georgia411.com. As you can see, classes such as gym classes, band, jazz band, and piano class are all not included in my GPA. As far as the weighting goes for my grades, my school goofed and forgot to weight some of my junior year classes, so no weight points were subtracted. Although this does not make a difference in my HOPE GPA, I just wanted to make everything clear.

Here is the HOPE Grade Report found on GAcollege411.com for each student:

   To get my final GPA of a 4.0, I took the last column total and divided it by the total number of attempted credit hours. 
   As you can see, calculating your HOPE GPA is no great mystery, but it can be a little confusing sometimes. In addition to the GPA requirement, there are more requirements to receive the HOPE and Zell Miller scholarships, but more to come on that later.


Resources: 

• GAcollege411 HOPE information: https://secure.gacollege411.org/Financial_Aid_Planning/HOPE_Program/_default.aspx
• GAcollege411 Create an Account: https://secure.gacollege411.org/Home/Create_an_Account/Create_an_Account.aspx