The best laid (SET) plans

I would like to start this post by thanking God for letting me do my teenage years in the '80's. I swear, I don't know how teenagers today cope without therapy. Maybe they don't, and that's where the problem starts. Firstborn is in the middle of Set plans, which is a cross between senior subject selection, future life planning and medieval torture. For a fortnight, there has been a steady background mumble of OP scores, uni preferences, HECS debts and thinly veiled inquiries about the possibility of car ownership if his first choice in courses comes through, since the campus in question is a two hour drive away. And it's only gonna get worse, the closer it gets..... I feel a sudden need to don a balaclava and make illicit withdrawals from some of our finer lending institutions.