I just finished sophomore year of high school and I already have an interest in UGA. I’m an OOS TN resident wondering what it takes to get a scholarship there. I’m a fairly good student and my school is widely known for receiving lots of scholarships. I am wondering if enrolling in the Honors Program slims down your chances for a scholorship.
I’m actually starting at UGA in the fall, so I have some knowledge about the process.
The thing about UGA is that aid directly from the school is slim. There are some (https://www.admissions.uga.edu/scholarships), but they don’t offer as much as other schools because all (I would assume) first-year, in-state students have HOPE (and most have Zell Miller, which covers full tuition). Because the state itself is so generous with aid, the school itself doesn’t offer much.
What I’ve found is that local scholarships are the way to go. At my high school, our GC was awesome about emailing students with scholarships and making announcements. There are some through school programs and ECs, local businesses, and local people who simply donate to help some people go to college. It differs in each area, of course, but if you put a lot of time and effort into applying, you’d be pleased with the results. Sometimes these are renewable and sometimes they are not. Again, it differs.
Local scholarships are awesome because you compete with a smaller pool of applicants (versus say, trying to get one on Fastweb) and that gives you a much better chance.
Although she is not going there, my daughter was accepted OOS this year. She had a 4.0 UGA weighted GPA and a 31 ACT. She was offered a classic scholarship which paid for 1/2 the difference between in-state and out of state tuition. I’m pretty sure the highest emphasis for OOS scholarships is ACT or SAT scores.
RE your question about honors program, honors classes mean nothing to UGA. They give extra weighting on their GPA calculation only to AP or IB classes, and the more of them you take, the more they like it.
My daughter will be starting UGA in the fall. She was accepted OOS this year and received the Classic Scholarship. I believe her gpa was 3.9 and ACT was 30. Her schedule as basically all honors classes and 5 AP classes. She was not admitted to honors which was a bummer for her but she will apply when on campus.
I think you were asking if you apply to Honors at UGA will this lessen your chance of UGA scholarships?
Admissions and Honors operate independently. If you are awarded scholarship by Admissions it has no impact on your Honors status.
UGA stacks scholarships so if you have external scholarships this will not impact a UGA scholarship.
If you are a strong academic candidate ( top scores) you should consider applying for the Foundation Fellowship.
My son will be starting at UGA as a Foundation Fellow this fall, if you are competitive for that, all costs are covered. Good Luck!