The outfit is a dead giveaway.

The mother, who normally shows up in sweats, is wearing a navy blue suit. Upon closer inspection, she’s wearing jewelry – not just her engagement ring, but earrings, too.

“So what school are you touring today?” I ask with a mischievous smile, almost giddy that I don’t have to be subjected to tours, applications, educational testing, and interviews this year.

The mother nervously looks herself up and down, and says, “Collegiate. Do I look okay?” Wavy hair blown straight, conservative black heels, Chanel bag. She looks more than okay. In fact, she looks perfect for Collegiate, the highly competitive, prim and proper all-boys school on the Upper West Side.

“This process is driving me nuts,” she says. “Everyone told me how crazy and time-consuming it was, but I still didn’t get it. I cannot wait until this fall is over.”

Most elite nursery schools in the city recommend that parents apply to at least six or seven schools for kindergarten. That’s six or seven mornings’ worth of touring different schools, and then a few weeks later, six or seven interviews for the parents and, in a nearby room, the children.

According to many parents I spoke to who are in the midst of the application process, it is a nightmare, and not just because of the time commitment.

“I am not exaggerating when I say that applying our daughter to kindergarten is ruining my marriage,” a mother of two says. “You cannot imagine how stressful it is for us to get to each school on time. To look the right way. To ask the right question. And then my husband and I don’t agree on what kind of educational environment our son will thrive in, and we don’t know which strings we can really pull. And of course, all the heads of admission are saying that there are so few spots. It makes you think about Scarsdale all over again.”

A father whose daughter is going through the process said getting into college was much, much easier. “It’s absurd. The other day on a tour of Spence I asked our guide what time the school day started. My wife looked at me like she was ready to kill me.”

The wife’s explanation? “The night before I had given him all the stuff to read about Spence. And the time the school day began was right in there. It was a stupid question. But I do feel bad because he has hours of reading to do for work the next day, and here I am giving him stuff to read about these schools each night. It’s ridiculous.”

She’s not the only woman shooting daggers at her husband. “The tour guide told us specifically not to go into the classroom. Of course, my husband walks right into the room. She had to ask him to please leave. He said, ‘I’m leaving. Don’t worry, I’m leaving.’ I was ready to kill him. He told me that we can make it up in the interview. But I really like this school and wish we weren’t going into the interview trying to make something up.”

Kindergarten is not taken lightly by many parents in our city. One head of a highly regarded nursery school was dismissed last year, in no small part because she failed to place children of board members into prestigious elementary schools.

“The heads of the nursery schools have to guide the parents to the right kind of kindergarten for their children,” a woman familiar with the situation says. “Obviously this can be a tricky process when there are parents who are in denial of their kid’s issues. The head of school hadn’t been direct enough with the parents, or prepared them for the reality of their child’s chances at being accepted. And then all hell broke loose when he didn’t get into any school.”

There is also the uncomfortable situation some parents find themselves in when their child is attending a nursery school attached to an ongoing school – a school in which they are not planning on enrolling their child.

“I feel like the school resents the fact that we’re applying out,” a mother of two girls says. “If you’re at a nursery school where everyone is applying out, that’s totally different. But it really is awkward here because a lot of the kids are staying at the school for kindergarten, and obviously if you’re applying to a bunch of other schools, the administration knows that you’re hoping to end up somewhere else.”

“I never thought I’d say this,” another mother of two says, “but I’m beginning to look back on the nursery school process with fondness. At least then you knew the process had nothing to do with your kid. But now, at 4, our son is being evaluated. And so are we.”

I heard many such complaints. “The process is so dishonest,” the mother whose husband asked what time school started says. “Try pulling your kid out of school six times to ‘go to a fun playgroup’ when you’re really going for your kid to be evaluated by admissions officers. And what about telling her that she’s going to do ‘special work’ when in fact, she’s going to take the ERBs? She knows something is going on. She’s not stupid.”

After seven tours, seven nights completing applications, seven interviews, and one long morning of educational testing, I sure hope she’s not.

sarasberman@aol.com