“Are we late?’ my 13-year-old asked again and again, as we headed first to an interview and then an audition, all within a three hour time span at an ungodly hour on Sunday. We were not, but plenty of frantic parents and kids were, and just as many appeared to be lost on their way to some of New York City’s most selective high schools.

Weekend after weekend, the sought-after schools have opened their doors for interviews, essays, tests, and tryouts. Individual dreams and dramas are playing out in households from Staten Island to Queens as admissions season comes down to its final weeks.

From lost lyrics and forgotten lines and glasses to art portfolios mistakenly left in cabs, the potential for mishap is great when the stakes are so high. How many kids or parents looked at our calendars or our phones, wondering if we’d messed up an address, a day or a time slot?

How many kids grew flustered when asked to articulate the reasons why they wanted to go to a certain school? (I know mine did, even after repeatedly rehearsing the answer in the subway.)

And just how much pressure is fair to put on eighth-graders who have one shot to tout their academic abilities in an admissions exam or interview, or to show off their skills as a dancer, musician, artist, actress or singer?<!--more-->

On Sunday, we managed to be on time to the back-to-back interview and audition, and even remembered the crucial documents (copies of the seventh-grade report card and an audition ticket). We packed I-pods and cell phones, novels, and snacks.

The security guards, staff, and volunteers we encountered at every turn repeated a message that should resonate for anyone with a child about to enter high school: Parents get out. It’s not about you.

I’m sure this came as a relief to the many kids who made it to tryouts and interviews on their own. And what parent wants to sit outside for hours in the freezing cold, as many did recently at Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens, where the audition lines snaked around the block at 7 a.m. ?

Over at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art, parents were warned tryouts could take four hours or even longer. They were encouraged to leave or invited to hang out and wait in an upstairs cafeteria.

I heard more than one teenager tell their parents to get lost. I watched others, looking utterly spaced out and spent, calling parents to come and get them. One father showed up at his son’s urgent text message request, telling a guard that his son had been in the school since 8 a.m. and had asked for food.

Showing compassion, the guard allowed the lunch to be delivered. Still another parent showed up with forgotten dance shoes, while another said a daughter had lost her cell phone and asked the guard if someone could lend her one when the tryout was over. They did.

Unlike the popular television shows “America Idol,’’ or “Dancing with the Stars,’’ the tryouts don’t come with instant feedback or decisions from a jury providing pithy commentary. Most often, very few words are spoken after auditions, beyond the standard “thank you." In some cases, call-backs provide a second chance for another shot.

The answer to the “how did it go,’’ question won’t be known until February, when decisions are made for those who took theSSHAT exam for the specialized high schools or tried out for LaGuardia and were accepted. Decisions will come six weeks later for those who did not apply to one of the nine specialized high schools.

With choices ranked and auditions and interviews winding down, I’m hoping eighth graders can now get back to preparing for high school, when the workload will be much greater and the next competitive hurdles of school -- and life -- will surface. It’s time to change the conversation.

In the meantime, Insideschools.org invites you to swap tales of tryouts and interviews and tests. Were they well handled and organized? How did you and your child survive the pressure? Is the system fair? Any thoughts on how it might be done better?