Folly and the Ivy for city’s prep parents

It’s stupid season in the city’s toniest schools. At this time of year, a crush of reasonably intelligent parents goes posi tively postal in pursuit of their goal to get little Bain or Brittney into that Holy Grail of learning, Harvard.

Trouble is, the race to the top of the educational heap starts when the children are but 2. Or younger. And despite a down economy, and the parents’ own lowly public-school credentials, it only seems to be getting worse.

And I confess — I may be one of these parents.

A family I know lives out in the boonies of New Jersey. Every weekday, spring, winter and fall, Mom sets her alarm for 4:30 a.m., rifles her two young kids out of their warm beds and drives into the city.

The kids snooze and wonder aloud if Mommy has lost her nut as she sings to a blasting car radio to stay awake. An hour and change later, they pull up to the children’s pricey private school. If they’re early, the family snoozes in the car until the morning bell rings, heralding the start of a day in which the kids will learn their numbers and ABCs among the spawn of other Type-A parents for whom only the best is good enough.

“It’s my only choice,” said the mother. What about suburban schools?

“Not good enough,” she said. “How else will I get them into Harvard?”

All over town, parents have set priorities. They’ll cheerfully live on cat food, if necessary, to pay for an elite education that, they firmly believe, will give a little one a leg up all the way from the playground to the concrete jungle

In an Upper East Side park, I met Ji-Young, who neurotically chased after a daughter who was not yet 2. The mom had recently moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn to save money. Yet she was plotting a daily, hour-plus subway journey to take her kid to one of Manhattan’s most prestigious private preschools. That is, if the toddler, not potty-trained yet, were to be accepted.

“She’s my only child,” she said. “I want what’s best for her.” And she uttered the “H” word. She’s dreaming of Harvard.

It was expected that the economy would empty private-school seats. Instead, the reverse appears to be true. Perhaps parents’ anxiety about their progeny’s futures is fueling the glut. But admissions officers report that top schools are seeing numbers of applicants slightly higher than in years past. The schools, which charge upward of $30,000 per year, lunch not included, get several applicants per open seat.

You can get overcharged in the public sector as well. A Manhattan company that preps kids for private-school entrance exams is poised to offer the service to the city’s top public gifted and talented programs — at $500 for a workbook. If you want a tutor to help your child ace the test, expect to pay $150 an hour.

“If [parents] can get a good to great public school for free, then tutoring and test prep is well worth the money,” Aristotle Circle CEO Suzanne Rhealt told The Post.

I know it’s probably unnecessary to go into permanent hock to get my kid educated. Yet I am not immune to the “what ifs.”

What if my child will be a happier/smarter/more successful adult after going to private school? What if I can’t take the chance of being wrong?

What if I am truly insane?

I am not immune to the immense pressure to give my kid the best possible start in life. This is New York. The best will cost you.

GOING ‘BUST’?

Hints are dropping faster than chicken grease down a chin that the venerable Hooters restaurant chain, a temple for the worship of cleavage, beer and fatty food, may evolve into a place in which waitresses walk around fully clothed. That includes the scantily clad lovelies now adorning the Hooters outpost in Midtown.

Say what?

As a lifelong New Yorker, I confess to having had no idea that Hooters, which evokes images of Southern redneck summers, existed in Manhattan. “I hear that all the time,” a waitress told me sadly.

Stranger yet, Hooters is just around the corner from that other cultural mecca, Carnegie Hall. So, wandering in for lunch on a snowy day brought me a warm burst of shapely shorts- and tank-top-clad cuties who gave new meaning to Hooters’ official slogan, “Delightfully tacky, yet unrefined.”

“What would you like, baby?” asked the sweet barmaid. I haven’t been called “baby” since I was 1.

The family-owned, 37-year-old Hooters chain of 400-plus breastaurants — hurt by the economy, torn by inter-relative money squabbles and woefully out of fashion — is looking for a buyer, The Post reported. Hinting that he’s looking to change the chain’s image, CEO Coby Brooks last week went undercover to a few of his restaurants for a reality TV show. He was blown away by the negative reaction from gals on the street.

“It’s demeaning to women,” said one unamused onlooker. Worse, he had to discipline a manager named Jimbo who forced his under-draped lovelies to feed off of plates of baked beans without using their hands.

I asked the barmaid if Hooters sells its women with its grub. She insisted that she worked in a diverse establishment. To prove it, she pointed to a shorts-clad beauty who was mammary-challenged.

“Hey, it’s not a strip club,” reasoned a customer who dropped by for a brew while his wife attended a conference.

Well, not quite. I wonder, is Hooters worth saving?

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