The acceptance letters arrived in a flurry of emails that made the whole house feel charged with electricity.

There were rejections, a waitlist, and finally two strong offers with aid packages we needed to study carefully.

Selena printed both and spread them across the kitchen table.

She compared research programs, class sizes, travel expenses, and scholarship conditions.

She contacted current students and asked questions I would never have thought to ask at her age.

Then she chose the university whose engineering program best matched her interests and whose net cost we could manage responsibly.

It was not the most famous school on her list.