Finding a Mentor?

[CrisCain]

Hi everyone,

I recently talked to my current advisor about letters of reccomendation, and he agreed, but now he keeps asking me if I have found a mentor yet. Does he mean that I need a mentor picked out at each of the seven schools I'm applying to? Before I get in?

I'm a little confused, can anyone shed some light on this?

Thanks!

Cristen

[fuzzylogician]

I don't know if it's common in your field to contact potential advisors and get their consent to mentoring you before applying; but you should at the very least have one or two professors (preferably more) in mind at each school you're applying to who you would like to work with and who could be your advisors. This is part of the basic research you do about every school you consider applying to - who there would I like to have as my advisor? Maybe that's what your current advisor is asking about.

[socialcomm]

I agree with Fuzzy -- but you might want to clarify with your LOR writer. It really depends on what field you're going into and the particular program -- in some cases you know exactly who you'll be working with going in. On the other hand, there's one program I'm applying to where you get matched up with an advisor until the second year so you don't really come in working with someone (but you should have people in mind you'd like to work with in the future).