Helicopter Parents Beware!

Helicopter Parents Beware!

A few years ago, I was working with a great student who would have given her right arm to attend Vanderbilt.  She knew it was the perfect school for her and could not even consider any other options.  Like most parents today, her mother felt she was a strong applicant (which she was) and wanted to do absolutely everything possible to increase her daughter's chance of admission.  She carefully proofed the application, edited the essays, baked cookies for the teachers writing the letters of recommendation, and gave the college counselor (me) expensive Christmas presents.  

As the application deadline approached, the mother was concerned that not all the required materials had been received by the college.  She called the admissions office and asked them to check.  "No, her file is still missing one teacher rec and we have not yet received her test scores, but they may just not have been filed yet."  But "Nervous Nelly" couldn’t help herself: she called the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that until she finally learned that her daughter's file was complete.

Unfortunately, the young woman did not end up being accepted. Given that she was a strong candidate, I called the admissions office and asked the Wisconsin representative about the decision.  The representative told me frankly, "She was a very competitive candidate but she was not admitted because of her mother."  Apparently, the assistant who had answered the phone and checked the daughter's file again and again and again and again had understandably found the mother to be both a pain and a pest and had added her own comment to the file: "Over my dead body!” 

Helicopter mothers and fathers beware – your seemingly helpful actions could backfire in a bad, bad way.