A host of parental postings on this blog in recent weeks have included the following concern: “My child has so much homework and gets so little sleep that I feel really sorry for him/her.”

Often, this has come from the parents of freshmen at schools like Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science and Stuyvesant, large, highly sought after and filled with high expectations and high achievers.

High expectations mean that students will be expected to keep up with what in some cases might feel like a daunting work load, while adjusting to huge schools filled with ambitious classmates and teachers who may not have time to get to know them.<!--more-->

Beyond academics, exciting opportunities exist at the schools for everything from research to sports and clubs, so it’s not surprising for students to feel a little lost and overwhelmed. Some will thrive, despite long commutes and challenging courses. Others will flounder.

Next month, 7th  8th and 9th-graders will learn if they scored high enough on the SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) exam to win acceptance at one eight specialized high schools in New York City that requires a test (the ninth, LaGuardia, admits students based on an audition.) Getting in is just the first hurdle, though, and many parents and kids will need to do a little more investigating and some soul searching to be sure the school will be a good fit.

There are plenty of articles that describe how good these schools are; US News & World Report, for example, just looked at the friendly rivalry between Bronx Science and Stuyvesant, and noted all the Nobel Prize winners and other luminaries who are graduates of both.

But what’s life really like inside the specialized schools, including some of the newer ones that get less publicity? Insideschools would like parents (and kids) who attend these schools to be honest and post helpful insights.

“Think about what all the pressure does to these kids,’’ the mother of a Bronx Science student told me, noting that her child’s workload has a big impact on family life. The sophomore routinely has two to four hours of homework a night and as much as seven hours on weekends.

Informal conversations reveal that many parents are shocked at the amount of drugs and alcohol at the specialized schools. (In fairness, you may hear this complaint about any high school in the city; what’s different is the parents of these very bright and ambitious kids say they did not expect it to be part of the culture.)

“These kids have already been weeded out [intellectually] but they still have all the curiosity of adolescence, and they while they may not want to talk about the pressure they are under, they might choose adult things like alcohol and drugs for an escape,’’ a Bronx Science parent noted. “They still have immature brains, but they think they can handle it.”

Parents have expressed concerns about the uneven quality of teaching, a concern at all high schools, since the quality of a teacher sets the tone and is considered the single most important factor for student success.

There’s also another question for parents whose children get into the specialized schools but are also weighing other choices: If your child is not oriented toward math and science, where most specialized schools are especially strong, will they get as rich an education? Do humanities teachers care as passionately about literature, history, and the quality of writing? Are the arts encouraged and celebrated? Can creative types flourish with the lab rats?

Are there any parents, or kids, who attend a specialized high school and wished they’d known what they were getting into beforehand? Would the same decision be made? What else can you share with parents and students who are trying to decide?