I completely agree. A friend of mine visited Yale over spring break and he overheard an Asian mom telling her son, who is a sophomore, "You must go [to Yale]." If I were that kid, I would have been like, "Are you kidding me? You know it's not that easy..." In cases like this I think parents do more harm than good. Yes, it's good to motivate a kid to achieve, but to pick out his or her life goals? That seems a little much.
In addition, one thing that I find ridiculous is that parents schedule appointments to complain to teachers about their kid's grades!? I hope that these parents know that many schools, like my own, make note of said parents and often have the guidance counselor mention the level of parent involvement. Just letting some of you CC helicopter parents know that you are probably screwing over your kids. I think that more schools should start discouraging this type of parental behavior. Why not just let the smart kids be the smart kids? Why do some parents go to extremes, like hiring college counselors and tutors for AP classes, just so that their kid, who's really a workaholic who "grinds" out "success", is seen as smart by Ivy League schools? I think that this is totally unfair and I am glad that colleges are being more subjective because it makes it college admissions more fair for your typical high school student who fills out their own college application, who writes their own essays, who teaches themselves AP material, who selects their own ECs and hobbies, etc. like myself, MetFan2289, and many others on CC.