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

????MBA申請咨詢公司Clear Admit的招生顧問史黛西?奧伊勒早已習慣在這個時候接到客戶電話了。畢竟多年來她一直都是這么為世界各地各個時區的MBA申請人服務的。

????不過這個電話有所不同的是，它是奧伊勒已經服務了好幾個星期的一個MBA申請人的母親打來的。這位母親表示，從她孩子申請開始，她就復印了申請人和招生顧問之間往來的所有電郵。

????她說：“我正好就是個律師?！钡攰W伊勒建議她兒子的申請材料中不要放進哈佛進修課成績單時，她卻并不同意。

????奧伊勒有點難以置信地表示：“她指責我，說我因為沒放這張成績單把申請搞砸了。這就是現在一些父母對MBA申請的投入程度?！?/p>

????這位母親表示，這個最后關頭的電話是她丈夫催著要打的。奧伊勒稱這位父親“已經不想再多聽兒子申請的所有細節問題了，所以催著她打給我”。掛電話前，這位母親請奧伊勒別跟她兒子說她插手了這事。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。

????當然，“直升機父母”（helicopter parents，總在孩子頭上盤旋，替孩子做各種規劃的父母——譯注）早就不是什么新鮮事物了。至少過去十年里，在孩子申請大學的過程中，這些父母一直就在事無巨細地包辦到位：幫孩子準備SAT考試，修改申請信——有時候還親自捉刀。在孩子挑選要申請的學校一事上，他們也起著主導作用。而且他們基本上總是會在開學時陪孩子入學。

????而十年后的今天，還是這些父母，又開始在他們業已成年的孩子——25歲到28歲不等——的研究生入學上傾注同樣的心血。招生顧問稱，近年來他們發現父母介入的程度大幅提高。有時候，這些父母會跟著自己的成年子女到大學參加咨詢會、招生面試，甚至陪他們去新生錄取接待周末（AdmitWeekend）。奧伊勒稱：“在他們的子女面試時，他們就在校園里逛。”

????奧伊勒最近離開了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父母。所有重大決定都會有媽媽攙和，但這些父母其實很少能真正幫上忙?！?/p>

????不管這些父母是如何好心，他們往往沒什么能耐真能幫得上子女。MBA招生咨詢公司The MBA Exchange的創始人兼首席執行官丹?鮑爾指出，MBA招生流程“和大學招生有很大不同，只有在大學招生時大家才希望并鼓勵父母參與。”他表示，有時候父母會裝成自己的子女，給他的公司及學校直接發郵件、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).