The subject of mentee potential raises two immediate questions regarding the pursuit of career and educational goals:
(1) Do the plans reveal a reasonable correlation between the mentee’s intellectual, psychological, and emotional profile and the stated objectives?
(2) Has the mentee developed realistic strategies and identified reliable resources to support their attainment?
In situations where the mentee’s aptitude and maturity are consistent with the targeted objectives and indicate a “good fit,” the mentor should find that responding in the affirmative to the mentee’s plans will often be a rather clear-cut decision.
An obvious concern, of course, even in a more apparently straightforward instance, is that mentors still accurately assess the extent to which mentees are truly pursuing goals that will allow them to maximize their specific talents—that their ability and ambition are matched.