Lorie and her husband live in Sacramento, they are the proud parents of triplets! Two sons and daughter are currently enrolled in their senior year of college, in very different places. Lorie’s daughter studies Social Justice and Leadership at St. Mary’s College, one son is majoring in Chinese Studies at Pacific Lutheran University in Washington state and another is double-majoring in German and Political Science at the University of Portland.
Lorie attributes a great degree of her children’s higher education preparedness and success to their high school experience at a private, college prep-oriented school in Sacramento. “We have three children who were all raised the same but had wildly different personalities and interests. We wanted the highest-achiever and the academic strugglers to have equal access to a strong college-prep education, at the same school. Our local public school did not offer the range of resources all three children, with very different abilities, needed.” Lorie was happy to learn that the private high school offered a great international program that provided her children the opportunity to study alongside students from all over the world. Perhaps not surprisingly, her sons have both enjoyed overseas experiences as part of their university studies.
In the “lessons learned” category, Lorie cautions parents to “not pay attention to all the “invitation” letters and packets their student will receive in their senior year of high school.” She points out that they’ll get hundreds of pieces of mail from all kinds of institutions hoping to entice an application. Lorie suggests parents not take these outreaches too seriously and be mindful of the fees associated with each application.
Lorie also wants to remind parents that the FAFSA needs to be filed every year, even if their student does not qualify for Federal assistance. She cautions against skipping the annual FAFSA for those who don’t qualify in the first year, “parents often don’t realize that their on-going academic scholarships and continuing financial aid all depend on the annual FAFSA data. If you skip the FAFSA in sophomore year, your student may miss out or lose significant financial assistance from the University.”
