Boo, this has been surprising to us, as well-- I mean, we sort of assumed that it WOULDN'T be all that important in our DD's mind, and for a while, it seemed as though it wasn't (other things were, and she's on the 'special exceptions' end of things in several ways, so....).
Then as it's gotten more "real" these things seem to become more real to
her, too. It's hard to watch them get more pragmatic, but I guess that is comforting in a lot of ways, too.
My DD is a junior this year, so she's still got time. I can't believe we've got a whole bunch of parents who are about to have kids old enough to go to... college.