While awaiting word from the city's specialized high schools this week, I found myself saying meaningless words to my anxious 13-year-old:``If we lived in the suburbs,'' I told him, "You and your classmates would never be going through all this drama. You would all just go to the neighborhood high school.'' My little speech meant nothing, however, because we have no intention of living in the ‘burbs, even if the New York City public high school process can drive parents to it.

By the time many city kids are ready for high school, they've developed an appreciation for riding the subway alone. They are ardent little city dwellers who can meet friends from dozens of different neighborhoods and all five boroughs at museums and movies and skating rinks without asking parents for a ride. Besides, most don't want to move to the suburbs. But that doesn't mean they like an arduous high school process of endless tours, tests, interviews, essays, ranking and a giant sorting out that seems arbitrary and mysterious.

Letters went out last week to the 29,000 applicants who took the exam for the eight specialty schools or auditioned for Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School. Some kids opened their letters with a mob of classmates, others found out in the office of their guidance counselors; others got handed the letter on the way out; some got the letters intercepted by their parents and some have still not heard.

Lots of parents don't appreciate this system. Jennifer from Yorkville, posting on InsideSchools.org, expressed a widespread wish for a system of academically strong and varied neighborhood high schools and noted that she does not understand how school decisions are made.

How, for example, could a kid with a 70-average and a disciplinary record get into Stuyvesant?(Answer - the probably very bright, possibly under-motivated child tests well and the specialized exams are based only on one exam)

How can so many brilliant artists be turned away from LaGuardia? Why do so many talented actors and actresses get rejected, while some accomplished students with terrific grades and great test scores get turned down at their first, second and even third choices? How do schools like Beacon and Bardthat are flooded with applicants that look similar on paper make the calls?

They never say, and I don't have the answers, but if you think parents are mystified and anxious this week, just check in onFacebook posts. If you don't have your own Facebook to compare notes with other parents, ask your child to share -- if they are willing. You will see status updates about tears and depression, along with posts expressing anger, happiness and disgust about having to wait until late March for a "match.'' The Facebook friends are offering one another words of comfort, like "everything happens for a reason,'' or "Not everyone likes Stuyvesant anyway.''

There are discussions of how the wrong kids get in, along with notes and advice comparing the different schools and lots of the standard: "You rock dude!'' and "congrats, ur awesome!''

The news in my household was what my 13-year-old music-obsessed son wanted: acceptance into LaGuardia. His joy was tempered in part by the sobbing in his school from those who were disappointed.

The main round matches won't be announced till March. That's enough time, as the city debates mayoral control, for parents and policy makers to think about revamping the high school system.