????今年一月的一個(gè)午夜，正好是哈佛商學(xué)院（Harvard Business School）第二輪招生截止日期前夜，電話響了。

????MBA申請(qǐng)咨詢公司Clear Admit的招生顧問(wèn)史黛西?奧伊勒早已習(xí)慣在這個(gè)時(shí)候接到客戶電話了。畢竟多年來(lái)她一直都是這么為世界各地各個(gè)時(shí)區(qū)的MBA申請(qǐng)人服務(wù)的。

????不過(guò)這個(gè)電話有所不同的是，它是奧伊勒已經(jīng)服務(wù)了好幾個(gè)星期的一個(gè)MBA申請(qǐng)人的母親打來(lái)的。這位母親表示，從她孩子申請(qǐng)開(kāi)始，她就復(fù)印了申請(qǐng)人和招生顧問(wèn)之間往來(lái)的所有電郵。

????她說(shuō)：“我正好就是個(gè)律師。”但當(dāng)奧伊勒建議她兒子的申請(qǐng)材料中不要放進(jìn)哈佛進(jìn)修課成績(jī)單時(shí)，她卻并不同意。

????奧伊勒有點(diǎn)難以置信地表示：“她指責(zé)我，說(shuō)我因?yàn)闆](méi)放這張成績(jī)單把申請(qǐng)搞砸了。這就是現(xiàn)在一些父母對(duì)MBA申請(qǐng)的投入程度。”

????這位母親表示，這個(gè)最后關(guān)頭的電話是她丈夫催著要打的。奧伊勒稱這位父親“已經(jīng)不想再多聽(tīng)兒子申請(qǐng)的所有細(xì)節(jié)問(wèn)題了，所以催著她打給我”。掛電話前，這位母親請(qǐng)奧伊勒別跟她兒子說(shuō)她插手了這事。奧伊勒回憶稱，還有一次她接到一位母親的電話，希望她知道她兒子在猶太贖罪日（Yom Kippur）前的晚上是不接電話的。

????當(dāng)然，“直升機(jī)父母”（helicopter parents，總在孩子頭上盤(pán)旋，替孩子做各種規(guī)劃的父母——譯注）早就不是什么新鮮事物了。至少過(guò)去十年里，在孩子申請(qǐng)大學(xué)的過(guò)程中，這些父母一直就在事無(wú)巨細(xì)地包辦到位：幫孩子準(zhǔn)備SAT考試，修改申請(qǐng)信——有時(shí)候還親自捉刀。在孩子挑選要申請(qǐng)的學(xué)校一事上，他們也起著主導(dǎo)作用。而且他們基本上總是會(huì)在開(kāi)學(xué)時(shí)陪孩子入學(xué)。

????而十年后的今天，還是這些父母，又開(kāi)始在他們業(yè)已成年的孩子——25歲到28歲不等——的研究生入學(xué)上傾注同樣的心血。招生顧問(wèn)稱，近年來(lái)他們發(fā)現(xiàn)父母介入的程度大幅提高。有時(shí)候，這些父母會(huì)跟著自己的成年子女到大學(xué)參加咨詢會(huì)、招生面試，甚至陪他們?nèi)バ律浫〗哟苣ˋdmitWeekend）。奧伊勒稱：“在他們的子女面試時(shí)，他們就在校園里逛?！?/p>

????奧伊勒最近離開(kāi)了MBA招生咨詢公司去了一家獵頭公司。她表示：“我不知道是不是只有這一代孩子才這樣。他們從小到大都有人撐著，就是那些終極直升機(jī)父母。所有重大決定都會(huì)有媽媽攙和，但這些父母其實(shí)很少能真正幫上忙。”

????不管這些父母是如何好心，他們往往沒(méi)什么能耐真能幫得上子女。MBA招生咨詢公司The MBA Exchange的創(chuàng)始人兼首席執(zhí)行官丹?鮑爾指出，MBA招生流程“和大學(xué)招生有很大不同，只有在大學(xué)招生時(shí)大家才希望并鼓勵(lì)父母參與?！彼硎?，有時(shí)候父母會(huì)裝成自己的子女，給他的公司及學(xué)校直接發(fā)郵件、打電話。

????The call came in at midnight on the eve of Harvard Business School's round two admissions deadline this past January.

????Stacey Oyler, an MBA admissions consultant for Clear Admit, was used to getting late-night calls from clients. After all, over the years, she has worked with prospective MBA students in time zones all over the world.

????But what made this phone call different was that it was from the mother of an MBA applicant Oyler had been working with for weeks. The mother explained that she had been copied on all the emails between the consultant and her client from the start of the engagement.

????"I'm just a lawyer," the mother explained. But she disagreed with Oyler's advice not to include in her son's application a transcript that showed the grade of a Harvard extension course he had taken.

????"She accused me of screwing up by not ordering a transcript," says Oyler in disbelief. "That is the level of investment some parents now have in graduate admissions."

????The last-minute phone call, the mother noted, was prompted by her husband, who, says Oyler, "was tired of hearing about every detail of their son's application and urged her to call me." Before the woman hung up, she asked the consultant not to tell her son that she had intervened. Another time, Oyler recalls, she received a call from a mother who wanted her to know that her son wouldn't be available after sundown just before Yom Kippur.

????Helicopter parents, of course, are not a new phenomenon. For at least a decade, parents have become deeply involved in their children's undergraduate admissions process. They help prep them for the SAT. They edit -- and sometimes write -- their essays. They play a key role in selecting the schools to which their children apply. And they almost always accompany them on campus tours.

????Ten years later, those same parents are now equally invested in the decisions of their grown children -- from 25 to 28 years of age -- to go to graduate school. Admission consultants say they have noticed a significant increase in parental involvement in recent years. In some cases, parents are tagging along with their adult children to campus for informational sessions, admissions interviews, and even admit weekends. "They'll go to campus and walk around while their son or daughter is being interviewed," says Oyler.

????"I don't know if it's just this generation or what," adds Oyler, who recently left MBA admissions to join an executive search firm. "They've been propped up their whole lives, and these are the ultimate helicopter parents. Every major decision has to involve the moms. Rarely are they helpful."

????No matter the intentions, parents are often ill-equipped to be helpful. Dan Bauer, founder and CEO of The MBA Exchange, an MBA admissions consulting firm, points out that the admissions process "is very different than undergraduate admissions, in which parents are expected and encouraged to participate." Bauer says that in some instances parents have actually pretended to be their sons and daughters in email and telephone communications with his firm and with the schools (see his recommended Do's and Don'ts for Parents).