While my high school boyfriend plotted his college experience, strategically selecting classes and patiently filling out his FASFA form line by line, I decided after my best friend declared she was headed to Snow College — I wanted in on that party. Shockingly, the application process for Snow was about a page long with my less-than-impressive transcripts attached and it was as competitive a process as applying for a library card. It cost about $2,000 for the year, so with my parents just a kid away from being empty nesters, they were onboard. Future planned.

Fast forward to today when I have a kid more like my husband than myself — planning, patience and execution. It’s why he’s an engineer. It’s these traits pushing me to learn the admission process for higher education; what I’m learning is just how competitive, frenetic, particular and labyrinthine it all is.

It’s similar to sending a teen to do grocery shopping. They don’t look at the prices, grab the name-brand products when the basic will do the job and, in the end, Mom has to come in the story anyway to show them how to use a debit card. This succinctly describes how I view my daughter’s drive to attend her “target school,” Columbia University.

My daughter, Scarlett, is headed into her junior year, a pivotal year for advanced placement (AP), concurrent enrollment (CE) and International Baccalaureate (IB) credits. This is the time to map out what comes after high school because every college has its own unique admission requirements. As the firstborn, she’s our guinea pig and we’ve learned a few things the hard way.

Realizing my husband and I are a bit late to the reality party of just how early students need to start narrowing down where they want to go to college, the last month has been like drinking from a firehose.

Here are a few key lessons we’ve learned:

First, start the research early. By eighth or ninth grade, begin talking with your child about college options. With hundreds of schools nationwide and about a dozen here in Utah, narrowing the field is one of the biggest hurdles. Each school has its own requirements. For example, Scarlett dreams of Columbia, which requires two years of a foreign language. She’s never taken one. Her counselor had to completely flip her schedule to squeeze in CE Spanish. Other universities may want four years of math, a college-level physics class or an art portfolio. Planning ahead matters. According to “How to Prepare a Standout College Application,” by junior year students should have a list of 10 colleges, including safety, target and reach choices.

The second thing we learned is that field trips are an essential part of the college search, whether it’s a school a kid is passionate about or not. A scheduled tour on campus allowed us to understand the application process more clearly, hearing directly from a student but also clarifying how a major university operated. It’s simple and free to schedule an in-person tour, especially at your state schools. While celebrating my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary in California, we stopped into UC San Diego.

UCSD is consistently ranked as one of the best in the country for Scarlett’s field of study, but with over 45,000 students, we quickly learned she wouldn’t actually get to pick neuroscience. Instead, students can be assigned their major based on availability and other stipulations. This is fairly common among the major institutions. I can’t say I’m wild about paying the same amount as a mortgage, yet my student doesn’t get to follow her dream and drive; she gets assigned those. Apparently, high education doesn’t work on a “customer is always right” model.

Still, Scarlett has her sights set on Columbia after falling in love with the school and the city when we visited New York in her seventh grade year. Reality eventually catches up to big dreams, something most cynical 40-somethings know. But the lesson we learned is to explain those realities early to your fledgling student.

Since Ivy League tuition hovers around $100,000 a year, I worried dropping the truth bomb her folks are solid middle class would erode her ambition. When we eventually went over the numbers, it did just that — for a minute. She had to adjust Columbia from her “target” school to her “reach” because the cost makes it that much harder to make happen, even with her perfect grades, high ACT and volunteer hours. This conversation is far worse than birds and the bees.

It’s that real conversation of money parents need to have early, clearly and honestly, giving their student a chance to find the right fit for school. Scarlett is ready to take on the challenge of applying for a million different scholarships in hopes the Columbia connection can be made. I guess I could sell a kidney on the black market. I personally can’t understand what Columbia has over my Snow College education.

Learning alongside your child is a venerable, humbling experience, one she has not enjoyed with her father and me literally dragging her toward her own future. I can’t blame her. Who wants to read a textbook or listen to podcasts about applying for colleges?

Through it all, I’ve realized the process is much more than picking a school. It’s about watching your child define who they want to be and where they’re likely to become it. Scarlett could end up a savvy New Yorker, a sun-kissed Southern Californian or my preference, a close-by Wildcat!

Wherever she lands, the road to college really hasn’t changed all that much. It’s still about finding a fitting path, working hard to get to where you really want to be and needing the support and guidance of those who came before.

Meg Sanders worked in broadcast journalism for over a decade but has since turned her life around to stay closer to home in Ogden. Her three children keep her indentured as a taxi driver, stylist and sanitation worker. In her free time, she likes to read, write, lift weights and go to concerts with her husband of 18 years.