Students shouldn't ignore that card in the mail or that next phone call from their moms because it could improve their college experience, according to the National Survey of Student Engagement's annual report.
The NSSE report, released on Nov. 5, interviewed over 300,000 freshman and seniors at 587 four-year colleges in the United States and Canada.
The survey measured academic challenge, student-faculty interaction, and enriching educational and campus experiences.
Thirteen percent of freshmen said their parents or guardians frequently intervened to help solve their problems in college. The study showed this frequent intervention, primarily from mothers, helped students feel supported and have greater satisfaction with the college experience. However, it did not help to improve students' grades. Instead, the study showed these students had significantly lower grades than their peers, the report said.
Mark McCarthy, Marquette University's dean of student development, said in an e-mail that he has noticed an increase in parents hovering and students contacting their parents frequently for advice.
"Many parents will call to inquire about the welfare of their children, but don't want their sons or daughters to know that they called," McCarthy said.
Students have become more comfortable with involving their parents in decision-making and problem solving, he said. The university sees this as a problem because parents are only hearing one side of the story, McCarthy said.
Nancy Sandhu, the Parent Program coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in an e-mail that the vast majority of parents that contact her office want to help their child, but don't know how to help. Parents call partly because they are making financial investments in their child's education and want to see a return on their investment, she said.
"There is always going to be a small group of parents who will be doing things that hinder their student's development, such as buy their students' textbooks for them, call a professor regarding their students' grade, go to a career fair with their student or, worse, for their student," Sandhu said.
McCarthy said Marquette uses Family Weekend, Preview and freshman orientation to discuss with parents concerns about problems their children may have and how to help their children take more responsibility for their decisions.
The UW-Madison uses its Parent Program, which launched in June 2007, to educate parents on how to be supportive of their son or daughter's development, Sandhu said.
"Our thought is that if we are proactive and give parents access to general campus information and reinforce with them important messages about academics, health, safety and others, that they will be more informed when their student has a problem or needs to make a decision," Sandhu said.
Lindsey Johnson, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, was a resident assistant at Cobeen Hall for the 2005-06 and 2006-07 school years. She said only noticed parents hovering at the beginning of the year.
"Parents are pretty good about giving their daughters space," Johnson said. "I rarely received phone calls from parents with concerns."