"And if dad is a businessman, they write notoriously bad essays," Hamilton jokes.
But parents don't just write their children's essays. They pressure them into colleges at which their children may not fit.
"Parents think if they just set their kids up at the most prestigious college, they're setting them up for life, but it just doesn't work that way," Hamilton says.
As a general rule, students are happiest when they are studying subjects that interest them and are surrounded by peers of similar intellect and socioeconomic background. That's not necessarily what makes their parents happiest. The problem isn't just parents pushing their children to schools they may not like. It's parents pushing children toward schools that may not even accept them.
"There's a lot of expectation management in the business," says Emilie Hinman, an educational consultant in Greenwich, Conn. "Do most wealthy students get into the colleges they apply to? If they're applying to appropriate colleges, sure."