As a mentor, you may have a pivotal role in helping a student decide to go to graduate school, choose a school, and select an advisor. You should encourage your student to:

• Visit campuses
• Investigate departments and potential advisors
• Talk with current students, faculty, and alumni
• Apply to more than one school
• Consider graduation rates and time to degree at institutions of choice

Introduce students to as many of your contacts and networks as is feasible. Encourage them to use these networks, extend them, and create new ones.

Help students understand that their marketable skills are more than just discipline-related, but may include such important abilities as communication, project management, budgeting, and evaluation, among others.

Provide opportunities to develop professional skills, such as writing reports, contributing to proposals, making presentations, or teaching.