The New York Times published an article this week "Letting Your Grad Student Go " on the phenomenon of helicopter parents in graduate schools admissions. Yes, I mean graduate, not undergraduate, admissions.

I have a dual perspective on helicopter parenting. I have been working in graduate admissions as a private consultant for the last fifteen years, and I also am the mother of five children ranging in age from 21-28. As the article reports my baby-boomer peers, the mothers and fathers of millenials, are playing more and more of a role in the application process.

As a consultant I have no problem with parents calling for information, footing the bill for Accepted's services, and providing advice and input to their adult children when the children request it.

As a parent, however, I cringe when parents insert themselves into the admissions process and attempt to control it in a misguided attempt to protect their children from possible disappointment or perhaps even perceived failure. While the desire to shield children from experiencing disappointment is understandable, it would be so much more constructive for their children, if the parents selectively support their children's goals and help them deal with disappointment when it inevitably comes their  way. Parents will neither always be able to prevent their children from feeling pain nor around to kiss the boo-boo and make it better. Kids need to learn how to handle setbacks.

Furthermore, parents who take over the application process are sending multiple negative messages.

1. To the school they are saying, "We don't have enough confidence in our children to let them manage the application process (or their affairs) on their own."
2. To the child they are saying "We don't have enough confidence in your ability to handle your affairs so we are going to take over this critical part of your life."

Regarding #1, if parents don't have the confidence that their adults children can manage their own affairs, why should school have confidence that they will be the leaders of tomorrow?

More concretely, I spoke today to an admissions officer at a top business school. She told me of parents and other older relatives coming to pre-application information sessions and to post-acceptance admit weekends. The older relatives were asking more questions than the accepted student.

That makes a bad impression.

If you are an applicant reading this post, then just as the NY Times says, set limits for your parents and older members of your extended family.

• All communication with the school should be between you -- not your parents, aunts, uncles, or grandparents -- and the school.
• Consider carefully your parents' advice on school and professional options. They want wants best for you. However, parents are human too and they are not infallible. You are going to live your life, work in the profession you choose, and attend the school you go to. Not your parents. The decision is yours and you will bear the consequences -- good or bad.
• Never take your parents to an admissions interview.  

Parents, if you are reading this post.

• Your child is an adult. Demonstrate confidence in his or her ability by letting them run their life.
• Offer advice when sought and occasionally even when not, but respect your adult children's ability to run their life. It doesn't reflect well on your parenting skills if they can't make important decisions.
• Help you child deal with disappointment -- be it a rejection or poor score -- by helping them to explore alternatives and examine the factors they can change to improve the outcome in the future. Don't play the blame game.

For more on these themes, please see:

• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Dr. Carol S. Dweck
• Raising Resilient Children by Dr. Robert Brooks and Dr. Sam Goldstein (More for parents of younger children, but the principles still apply.)

By Linda Abraham, founder and president of Accepted.

To apply or not apply. That is the question many of you are asking yourselves as admissions deadlines approach. Is it time to go for the MBA? The JD? MD? PhD?

Here’s the answer: it depends.

I know that’s a cop out, but it’s true. It really depends on you, your circumstances, and your goals. I’ve seen too many people—clients, friends, and others—target degrees that ultimately don’t make sense for them. And with today’s unprecedented (in our lifetimes) economic challenges, making the right decision about how to spend the next one to eight (PhD’s can take that long) years of your life is even more crucial.

As someone on his fourth career—counting at-home dad—I should know. My full bio’s elsewhere on this site, but I went straight from undergrad to a PhD program in clinical psychology. It took six years to complete the degree and less than six months for me to leave the field, afterward. Do I regret doing my PhD? Not really: it helped me secure a management consulting position and writing work in academia; and those three letters do look nice on business cards. Do I wish I’d thought more about my strengths and interests and gotten more professional experience before taking that six-year plunge? Absolutely.

In that spirit, let me offer some thoughts on each major graduate degree, and what to think about as you consider applying.

PhD: Having earned one, I think the best reason to pursue a PhD is to secure a career in academia. For professorships at big-name research institutes, it’s the only way in. Sure, people go into industry after becoming this “other kind” of doctor, but I would argue that they don’t need the degree to get there, and even that their time would be better spent gaining real-world experience. Beyond that goal issue, this is the right degree for you if you live and breathe research—using data of all kinds to build on existing theories, generate new ones, and explain phenomena. You should love all things research, including debating theory and methodology with others, to be a serious PhD candidate. As you can imagine, earning a PhD also takes tremendous discipline—for that matter, so does being a professor. It’s not for those who need a lot of structure and guidance.

MBA: The vast majority of my clients are MBA applicants. I help most write very specific goals into their essays. My guess is that post-MBA very few end up doing exactly what they say they will. That tells you several things, one of which is that this is a strong all-purpose degree, and not just for the business world. What other degree turns out so many bankers, consultants, non-profit heads, marketers, operations consultants, policymakers, and so on? None. So there are many good reasons to get the degree, which takes the least time of any advanced degree (one to two years) and generates a lot of job opportunities. Even today. Beyond recruiting, MBA programs endow students with fantastic networks—some debate this point, but I’ve seen how much my friends, colleagues, and even my wife (Kellogg MBA) have benefited from b-school contacts. Any reasons not to go? If business or related fields aren’t really your thing—as I discovered as a strategy consultant—don’t go. If you hate structure and data-based problem-solving and team projects, don’t go.

MD: My brother, both brothers-in-law, and many, many friends are doctors—not med students, not residents, not fellows, but practicing doctors. Most hate how long it took for them to get to this point: they watched friends make “real money” for years while they worked impossibly long hours for little monetary reward. Now, most love what they do, and are thrilled to be in such a stable field that allows them to truly help people while making a reasonable living. But is it for you? I think it comes down to enjoying solving the problems that doctors solve. That sounds self-evident, but I think people forget, especially after all the TV shows that highlight the profession’s highest and lowest moments, that in the end it’s often you in a room with patients and/or other doctors, trying figure out how to diagnose and treat a given set of symptoms. Are you good at that kind of pattern-matching-based problem-solving? Are you okay with the idea of dissecting a cadaver (you have to, in med school)? Do you mind dealing with people often at their worst (other than pathology, radiology, and maybe some other specialties, you’ll have to)? Ask yourself these questions to understand if you’d be happy as a physician.

JD: I know the least about this grad degree. But I do know that a very large number of trained lawyers do not work as attorneys—many are in the business world and elsewhere. That tells me at least a couple things: one, that getting a job as an attorney may be difficult, given supply and demand (it’s definitely a bad job market for lawyers right now); two, that many people rush into law school without really knowing if they want to be lawyers. So think hard about it. Maybe it makes sense to work in the field before committing to grad school. Research what attorneys do, day to day. Again, TV has glamorized litigation (i.e., trial work), but many lawyers rarely set foot in the courtroom. If you find a path that seems to match your skills and interests well, it’s a good sign.

The bottom line: think hard about your grad-school decision. Don’t get a degree because you feel you “should” or you don’t have a lot of other options. If and when you decide a graduate degree is the way to go, my fellow editors and I would be happy to help you make it happen.

By Dr. Sachin Waikar, formerly a McKinsey consultant and now an author and advisor to business and grad school applicants.

Financing Your Future: Winning Fellowships, Scholarships and Awards for Grad School, by Linda Abraham and Rebecca Blustein, shows you how to get the financial support you need to attend the graduate school of your choice.

In Financing Your Future, an instantly downloadable ebook, you’ll learn about:

• Different types of scholarships.
• When to apply for financial aid.
• How to assemble a strong application.
• Applying for high-prestige scholarships.
• Specific program tips and interview advice.

Check out Financing Your Future: Winning Fellowships, Scholarships and Awards for Grad School.

According to Elizabeth Seger, Assistant Director of Admissions at the University of Michigan Law School, "Our guidelines for personal statements have not changed in light of economic changes, nor do we plan to make any changes to our application." She adds, "If an applicant wishes to discuss long-term goals, we certainly find it helpful, but it isn't essential."  

This is Alex. Everyone say “Hi Alex!”.  All her life, Alex wanted to be an astronaut because she thought it sounded cute - "Alex the Astronaut" and anyway, her hometown, Little Creek, South Dakota, was a little boring.  She finally made it to graduation (never thought she’d make it that far..) and here she is now, deciding on her career path for the future.  Somehow, the astronaut idea had lost its appeal, so she’s actually debating between a combustion engineer (rocket scientist) or entrepreneur to launch her career.

So her search began to Choose the Right College. Alex wondered- “Does it matter which college you choose?”  Then she read Lynn Mattoon's article What Are You Really Going to College For? posted at myUsearch blog which suggests it is more about what you do than where you go.  She realized before you choose, you need to first figure out why are you going to college.  So Alex’s combustion engineer goal kind of exploded. Or imploded. 

But where should Alex actually go? While looking to find a review of a particular college, she found some tips to use in Tom Tessin’s  Student Reviews of Colleges - Finding Them posted at FCC Student Blog.  She also read up on Great College Advice's article by Katherine Price, the Top 5 Reasons to Go to College Out-of-State,
where Katherine noted that you may have an easier time being admitted to great universities outside your home state.  And tuition may not be any more expensive than attending college down the road. 

Speaking of tuition, Alex realized she had better enter the long road of applying for Scholarships.  She started with admissions expert Julie Manhan best tips to secure a scholarship for those high tuition bills in How to Begin Your Scholarship Search posted at myUsearch blog.  After securing as many scholarships as she could, Alex realized that the funds, together with her little piggy bank, just wouldn’t cut it to cover tuition. 

She needed to find out about Financial Aid options. Knowing that college can be a very financially challenging time, but also a time of great discovery, she read up on Jim Wang’s 40 Money Tips for College Students posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. So now she was a bit more economically savvy, but Alex wasn’t sure she was maximizing her student loan eligibility.  After reading Sophie's seven frequently asked questions and the answers needed to ensure she was not missing any money she may have been eligible for at 7 FAFSA Myths-Don't Lose this Money posted at Sophie's Blog, she felt more relieved, and secured enough funds to pursue her dreams. Almost...

She still had to work on Getting Admitted.
She began working on her application to Dream Business School, conveniently located in Big Creek, North Dakota. She was almost done and thought her application was exactly what the adcom wants to read.  Suddenly, she felt ill. She realized she was suffering from Generic Itis. After a quick search online, she found out the symptoms and prevented it from ruining her application with Linda Abraham's Application Essay Tip: Generic-Itis Prevention posted on the Accepted Admissions Almanac. She also checked out Sophie’s Crucial tips about College Accreditation, learn how it will affect your wallet posted at Sophie's Blog while deciding which courses to take.

Finally, Alex crossed the application bridge and made it to College Life! Amazingly, she received more mail regarding credit card options than from her Dream College (she got in- by the way), so she read MBB’s College Students and Use Of Credit Cards posted at Money Blue Book Blog and made sure to get the best card for her. And yeah, not give away her SSN.

Comfortably ensconced in college life, Alex decided to explore some Other Cool Stuff on the Horizon.

She met students who went directly to graduate business school and insisted they get a lot out of their studies without working first. But many business-school officials didn't agree. She found out the real deal with Khan's Full-time Job After Graduation or Start Work on an M.B.A posted at Higher Education and Career Blog. Alex really wanted to keep everyone updated, but didn’t realize just how difficult is it to blog and attend school as an undergraduate. It seemed that most student blogs were not current, or they have long spaces of inactivity as these students attend to life as they know it. She checked out the ones who stayed on top in Frederick Yarmy's Top 50 Blogs By Undergrad Students posted at Undergraduate Degree and began her own blog called In Alex’s Outer Space. 

Then she posted this carnival detailing her exciting journey to this point in her life. 3….2…1….Time to take off on your own college journey! Good Luck!

On behalf of Accepted.com, Alex thanks Mark Montgomery of Great College Advice for organizing this carnival. For future carnivals, please submit your articles here.

*Photos Courtesy of Accepted.com 2009 Beautiful B-School Photo Contest. 2010 Contest Starting Soon.