There was a certain implicit challenge in going to a lecture by someone billed as the most popular teacher in Harvard's history. As I queued last week for Tal Ben-Shahar, the “professor of happiness”, who regularly pulls an astonishing 900 students into his positive psychology lectures, I found myself trying to remember whether, as an undergraduate, I would have bothered getting out of bed to go

to classes to learn how to be happy. Unlikely, I decided, because as far as I can recall most of us were far too unthinkingly happy being happy ever to consider the need for such things.

Yet Professor Ben-Shahar, who brought his simple message of positivism to several sell-out events in the UK last week, has been turned into a superstar by needy undergraduates. The message they clamour for can be summed up in a few bullet points: allow yourself to feel emotion; simplify your lives; take as much exercise as possible; breathe deeply; express gratitude for the good things in life. As Ben-Shahar himself freely admits, he is the bridge between self-help books and academia.

That a market now exists for this kind of intelligent homily is not in doubt: Ben-Shahar quoted research on 13,000 American students that showed that 45 per cent felt depressed to the point of not functioning, and 94 per cent felt overwhelmed by things. No wonder, when someone dangles quick-fix happiness like a carrot, these needy kids turn up in their droves.

And no wonder those of us about to launch our children into the undergraduate world are worried by the implications of the Ben-Shahar phenomenon. Because if, as he says, the whole world is suffering from attention deficit disorder, chronic stress and overwork and lack of happiness, as well as what he calls Too Busy Disorder (TBD), then how can we safely guide our bright, precious young things on their trek to the sunlit uplands?

This is a crucial time to pose the question. Thousands of households are suffering badly from a nasty disorder of our own called UCAS; or, to give it its various names in full, University Choice Agony Syndrome; University Candidates' Awful Suffering; Unbelievably Cruel And Sadistic; and only in rare instances Universities and Colleges Admissions Service. Most of us went down with the first symptoms in October, and things have been building to a crescendo ever since. Every day brings deep depression, high elation and fearful dilemmas. This is crunch time. Since a week last Tuesday, which was the closing date for all applications other than Oxbridge and courses in medicine, veterinary medicine and dentistry, the responses have - or, more horribly, haven't - been dropping in the e-mail and the letter box.

Every time a text pings on the mobile, parents of children with applications to UCAS wince with anticipation. It may be a hysterical “Got an unconditional from York!” or a suicidal “Manchester don't want me”. More likely, if my experience is anything to go by, it will be a deadly absence thus far of any news, resulting in a silent tension, a compulsive checking of the UCAS website and stubbornly empty inboxes. Rejection hovers in the air, like a faint, evil smell. You can see the thought bubbles above the youngsters' heads: if they wanted me, I would have heard by now.

The problem with the UCAS process is that we make our children think so much hangs on it. We convince ourselves that whatever course, university and city, that our children head for as undergraduates will shape, if not wholly determine, their future. Their career, relationships, happiness, income, status, size of house, marque of Audi: everything could depend on choosing the right wretched course in the right wretched city. And it is an impossible task.

Today's generation of helicopter parents, who have cossetted and hovered over their babies ever since nursery, are allergic to gambles. But here's the biggest one. After all the care taken to get to this point, here they are with events largely out of their control, watching and waiting as the dice tumble.

What one must understand, sadly, is that the kind of unhappiness that Professor Ben-Shahar is called upon to tackle is largely caused by the huge expectations placed upon students by their driven parents.

These days, in too many cases, the drama of choosing a university involves the family's status as much as the child's talents. UCAS Syndrome has unpleasant side-effects, one of which is one-upmanship. Supper parties, once safe affairs where middle-class parents could hold their own in the two guaranteed subjects for discussion, property prices and school fees, are minefields come January. Keeping up with the Joneses is an awful job if their child has applied for Oxbridge and yours hasn't; or if theirs has got a place at St Andrews and your best trump is East Anglia. And what's Emma applying for? Oh, media studies? How nice. You must be very pleased. Do they actually do honours degrees in that?

The paranoia is evident on the UCAS website, which has a special section for parents and reads more like a support group for people with an extremely nasty illness. Which in a way it is.

Among the Frequently Asked Questions are these gruesome examples: My daughter's friends have started getting offers. When is she going to hear something? My son has been turned down for medicine. What can he do to get in? We aren't happy with the universities our son has chosen. What can we do? My daughter is desperately unhappy at college. We want her to stay, but can she reapply if she leaves?

Note the common theme. These are all about parental aspirations, not about what's best for the child. You can hear the rotor blades thumping. So beware the dangers of UCAS Syndrome. It is turning loving parents, who in their time probably applied to UCCA, the old Universities Central Council on Admission, entirely on their own, into managerial despots. Let the children have freedom; and with it happiness.

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