Wow. Just spent the last two months having my eyes opened by the college application process.

Overall, the process itself has come a long way since I sat trying to line up a hard copy of a college application in the typewriter to bang out my essays, praying I didn’t make a typo or exceed the page length.

The Common App, while it’s not perfect, streamlines the whole process, as well as allows for much better organization than an old trapper keeper stuffed full of papers and pamphlets.

The idea of having one main essay that goes out to everyone is a godsend, and the time and energy spent crafting that masterpiece made a lot more sense than crafting an individual one for every single school. That doesn’t stop schools for asking for a bunch more information, everything from a “short” 350-word essay to bullet point lists to 50 word or less answers.

Honestly, on some of these applications, I feel like they are simply marathons of word vomit and if you can outlast every other contestant, you’re in.

Some of them were fun exercises in creative writing, and it was clear what the admissions officers hoped to glean from the answer.

Others, well, I had to read them eight or nine times, and I still wasn’t sure what the question was. It didn’t matter what caliber the school was.

Some of the more prestigious, “tougher” schools that he applied to had some of the simplest requirements.

I felt like their approach was “we know it when we see it.” I felt that other schools were trying to make themselves seem much more impressive by asking the most esoteric of questions.

Of course, none of that insight really mattered to A, who at the end of the day is a 17-year-old high school kid, who really doesn’t have a single thing figured out yet. This was a great exercise in having to do the assignment for the sake of the assignment.

Around the fourth or fifth one, he stopped trying to understand why someone would ask this question, and which one of his previous answers could be recycled to fit the new requirement.

When I was a high school senior, we had a weekly seminar class on how to apply to college. It included resume writing, and those skills came flooding back in a heartbeat.

A thought I was completely ridiculous when I suggested “safe vehicular transportation of his sibling to and from extracurricular activities, on a daily basis” instead of “giving his brother a ride to soccer practice.”

Why say you were “a lifeguard” when you could say that you “oversaw a multiuse, aquatic facility; worked with a multifaceted team to ensure public safety, and performed additional duties as required by management to prepare for emergencies.”

Unfortunately, my services were determined to be unnecessary for the task at hand. I was fired pretty quickly, and only brought back to proofread the final copy. It was interesting to see A’s version of how he wanted the world to see him. Being as unbiased as I can be, I think he did a pretty good job of staying true to himself.

I found it fascinating which events and activities he felt influenced him the most, or were the most deserving of top billing on his resume, or were the “pivotal” moments that he chose to share.

Not surprisingly, they weren’t the same ones I had in mind. Of course, he had many references to Steve, and how losing him has affected him, but he chose to focus on the good memories, and how he has become more determined to live life to its fullest.

I knew one of the tasks he had to complete was writing a thank-you note to someone who had positively impacted him. I expected one answer, but was thoroughly surprised to find he had written a heartfelt thank you to his soccer coach, because of the early morning workout program he had started, and the discipline that it enabled Stephen to discover that he had within himself. It was with a bit of sadness that I noted that most of the “lessons learned” that he chose to relay were about developing self-reliance, and not counting on other people to have your back. It has been a bitter lesson that he has learned over and over this year, but it is one that I think will serve him very well as he makes his way into the unknown.

This whole process has been about the next steps of his future, but for me, it has turned into an evaluation of his past. We are closing in on adulthood, and this has allowed me to really observe the person that he has become.

It’s bittersweet as always, not being able to share it with Steve. The maturity and depth that a lot of his responses had, though, echoed so many things that Steve taught him over the years. Steve always wondered if any of it was “getting through,” and at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that a lot of it did. Now, we wait. Hopefully, this will pay off for A in the ways that he hopes it does and he ends up at a school that he likes and that wants him.

As for me, I’m grateful for the insight it gave me, and the time we shared proofreading his submissions together.

Now, I have a little break and I get to do it all over again with G in two years.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing columnist who appears weekly in the Times News.