Strategy Eval: Load up flat fee, then withdraw for no additional cost.

[davewill]

I would suggest that dropping the capstone as a "strategy" doesn't make a ton of sense, since you'll just have to come back and pay the full tuition for it later. Better to plan on extending the capstone if you think you might be overwhelmed. As long as you can get at least 50% of the work done before the end of the term, you'd be good to go. If you go that route, be sure to inform the mentor, before the due date, every time you need to turn in an assignment late.

As far as your topic goes, as long as you can formulate 3-5 decent research questions, and use that research to support a thesis, you'll get a good grade. No need for anything "controversial" or groundbreaking. Length also turned out to not be of much concern as the prescribed format requires a lot of repetition. I started out with 5 questions, and about halfway through dropped two of them when I had trouble finding relevant research for them. I also went the extension route when I started a new job with travel requirements part way through the term and started to fall behind. I only needed a couple of extra weeks, basically just the last merge, edit and polish passes before turning it in.