Invasion of the Helicopter Parents

The new crop of MBAs is often accompanied by moms and dads eager to get involved in their kids' education. Is this hovering healthy?

by Alison Damast

Marsh Pattie, student affairs director at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, knew that something had changed when the mother of a first-year Darden student came to the Charlottesville campus this fall and found her son an apartment and set up his utilities before he even arrived in town.

"That was a first for me," said Pattie, who has been at Darden since 2003. "I have never before had a parent handle all of the logistical arrangements for their children's move to Charlottesville in preparation for business school."

School administrators are used to parents who see their kids safely off to the school bus for grade school, watch over them in high school, and maybe help them get settled on campus when they leave home as college freshmen. But the actively involved parent was pretty much an unknown phenomenon in B-school—until now.

Sitting In

Students from the generation born in or after 1982—the "millennials"—are slowly making their way onto the campuses of business schools, with the first wave hitting MBA programs now (see BusinessWeek.com, 2/15/07, "Millennials on a Mission"). They're being closely trailed by their parents, some of whom fall into the category of "helicopter parents"—so called because they tend to hover around their adult children, keeping in constant touch and sometimes prying into their personal and professional lives.

Their hovering tendencies also manifest themselves in frequent phone calls and e-mails to administrators about their offspring's application and academic progress at school, school officials say. In the most extreme cases, they have tried to intervene on behalf of their child during the application process, attend job fairs on their son's or daughter's behalf, or sit in on campus interviews. And they sometimes call Pattie to ask him to check up on their kid if he or she hasn't called home in a day or two.

"It's hard to believe, but the parents are actually part of the process now, too," says Rachel Edgington, the Graduate Management Admission Council's director of market research and analysis. "A couple of years ago when we started talking about the millennials coming to business school, the schools said, 'I can't believe that parents would actually come to the school or come along for an interview.' But they are."

Moving Service

Overbearing parents can sometimes clash with campus officials and professors, who want students to become independent leaders and decision makers, notes Bruce DelMonico, director of admissions at Yale University's School of Management. "There are certainly different competing interests that are involved here," he adds.

The change isn't lost on students either. Darden first-year student Kristin Strauss was taken aback when she saw a large number of parents moving their children onto campus during her first day of school. Strauss, 25, moved in by herself but found she was in the minority. She watched parents park their cars on campus, unload suitcases, and help their children—most of who were in their mid to late 20s—decorate their rooms.

"I was kind of surprised when I moved that so many parents had driven down and were shopping at Target with the MBA students to get them set up in their apartments," Strauss says.

Maybe she shouldn't have been. Younger MBA students rely heavily on their parents when it comes to making important life decisions. About 65% of students under the age of 24 say they are likely to use their friends and family as resources when deciding to pursue an MBA, according to the 2006 MBA.com registrant survey conducted by the GMAC.