It's tough being a business school in the era of helicopter parents. How do you make leaders out of twenty-somethings who are still attached to mommy by an invisible umbilical cord?

Now that Admitted Students Weekends are behind us, administrators and professors around the country are wondering whether they admitted mom and dad by accident.

BusinessWeek reports on the overbearing parents of incoming MBA students who arrange housing for their kids, try to crash incoming student dinners, sit in on classes, and clash with campus administrators and professors trying to set some boundaries. And that's after they've already butted in on the admissions process:

At Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, 75 students attended this past weekend's welcome event for admitted and confirmed students. Ten parents also came, said Brian Lohr, Mendoza's director of admissions.

. . .

A mother of a Boston University School of Management student asked the admissions office last year if she could attend an open house for admitted students in place of her child, says Chris Storer, BU's associate director of admissions. The school refused to let her attend the event, he says. "It's really designed for students to connect with each other and other admitted candidates," Storer adds. "It sort of defeats the purpose if we were to allow random parents to come."

. . .

Dawna Clarke, director of admissions at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, recalls two recent cases where parents called her office after learning their children didn't get into Tuck and proceeded to complain about the school's decision. "I would say I think that the applicants would be really mortified if they know how their parents had handled it, and in both cases the parents didn't want the applicants to know they had contacted us," Clarke says.

I've heard similar reports from law schools. One law school administrator I talked to this past week reported the following:

We had several students bring one or both parents to Admitted Students Weekend. I don't get it. Why would parents want to be here? Why would students tolerate their parents being here???

Parents now show up at orientation, call the Dean of Students to ask to have their kid's schedule changed ("my daughter simply can't have 8:30 classes"), call the Dean to complain about faculty, call the registrar to complain about grades, try to come to their students admissions interviews, call the Dean of Admissions about admissions decisions...

Don't get me wrong -- we love it when parents come to visit their enrolled students or when parents join their prospective students on a general admissions tour. I don't mind answering the parents' reasonable questions on those tours either. The ordinary parents ask questions about housing, financial aid, and safety, mostly. The ones I don't like are the ones who speak on behalf of their children at all times and never let the kid ask a question. And it's the ones who get involved with the day-to-day academic and social lives of students who are old enough to drive, vote, and drink who baffle me.

From a thirty-something law school professor:

I was on a faculty panel during admitted students weekend, and I noticed a kid in the audience flanked by his parents. He had a look of absolute panic on his face the entire time. I felt really bad for him.

And from as a thirty-something law firm partner:

Talk about an automatic ding -- if you need Mommy to fight your battles, I don't think much of your chances going up against the plaintiffs' bar.

My advice to twenty-somethings? Go against the herd. You'll distinguish yourself in the admissions process, in school, in the hiring process, and on the job if you present yourself as an independent, mature adult and leave mommy and daddy at home.