Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday.
When you are applying to business school, leave your parents out of the process! Although this MBA admission tip may seem obvious to most candidates, those who are a part of “Gen Y” or “The Millennials” may have parents who are accustomed to helping guide their children’s choices, having done so throughout the candidates’ high school and college years. These parents naturally want to be involved in the MBA admissions process as well and are now leaving many admissions officers across the country shaking their heads.
Of course, having a parent call to confirm whether an important document was received when an applicant is perhaps traveling/working abroad and/or cannot make such a call him- or herself during work hours is certainly not the same as having a parent call to ask why his/her son or daughter hasn’t gotten an interview invitation yet. Unless the matter at hand is an entirely practical one, candidates have nothing to gain by having their parents act as their agents. On the contrary, they have everything to lose. An aggressive parent can reflect badly on an applicant for a variety of reasons, the most obvious being that it suggests that the candidate lacks maturity and perhaps even the ability to make independent judgments and decisions.
Think very carefully before you involve your parents in any aspect of the application process except sitting at home and waiting for great news—successful applicants do it all the time!