Lead. Inspire. Grow.

1Ys will be matched with juniors and 2Ys will be matched with seniors. This is intentionally designed you that both of you go through your final 2 years at Wharton together, from internship recruiting to evaluating return offers to graduating together.

We believe in empowering undergraduates with opportunities that expand their perspectives, foster a sense of community, and challenge them to grow. Our MBA mentorship program is a core aspect of our mission as an MBA mentor can leverage past experience from the professional world to provide undergraduates with a new perspective and guidance on future ambitions.

After the matching application closes, we will export, review, and clean the data set to generate 4 master match files: juniors, seniors, 1Ys, and 2Ys. We'll conduct a weighted average of preferences (location, industry, hobbies, and affinities) across the entire pool to generate one to many match scores and then run a simple utility match function. Juniors are matched with 1Ys and seniors are matched with 2Ys. Any leftovers on either side are manually matched.

This process is not perfect, but it provides a "good enough" match for our purposes as we generally match 600+ people in one semester, so please bear with us. To ensure the best fit possible, we encourage you to be selective in your preferences as selecting every box will only mean that you are fine with anyone.

We hope not. Wait. What? Yeah, you read that right. The purpose of our mentorship program is to connect undergraduates with someone who will provide them a new perspective and challenge them to grow.

Through our years of research, we've found that matching someone with a clone of themselves does not contribute effectively to their growth, if at all. Quite frankly, these matches are the quickest to fall apart because the other person doesn't bring something new to keep the relationship interesting. It often feels like you're talking to yourself.

While we believe that a mentee who's different can provide the best opportunity for both of you to grow, we still try to provide a few attributes in common such as industry, location, bio-demographics (gender & race) and affinity (Military, LGBT+, etc).

While every mentorship relationship is different, you can, but are not obligated to:

• Provide insight into an industry area, location, or field

• Be a sounding board for ideas

• Support them as a friend

• Give them advice on potential future ambitions

• Teach them a new skill or tool they're interested in

• Identify areas where they can step up or grow in their personal or professional life

• Help them practice cases, mock interviews, or review their resume

• Connect them with professionals in areas they're interested in exploring further

• and more!

At the end of the day, your relationship with your mentee, like any relationship, will be based on what the both of you have invested in it. If you are not willing to reach out and engage with your mentee, then ultimately, the relationship will go nowhere. Here's what you can do to make the most of the relationship:

• Set up a regular time and date to check-in and commit to it.

• Take the initiative to engage, undergraduates can often be shy or nervous when reaching out to someone who's more experienced.

• Recognize challenges your mentee is facing personally or professionally and come prepared to discuss it with them.

• Establish key goals or ambitions they'd like to reach and identify ways in which you can best support them.

• Have a goal or theme for each meeting.

• Listen to them with an open mind. Please respect your mentee's privacy by not sharing information they've opened up to you about.

• Pick 2-3 topics to focus on for each meeting and take things slow. Look for themes in their challenges, questions, or problems.

• Help your mentee identify their blind spots and areas of growth.

• Be intentional in your interactions, it shows and makes every meeting more meaningful.
• Mentorship can be a 2 way street. Don't be afraid to share what's going in your life as well, they may be able to provide a fresh perspective or sounding board for your ideas.

• Have fun! Change it up. Perhaps meet at a cafe, a park, or a rock climbing gym. Remember that your mentee is a human too, so don't be afraid to get social. They might just be your new bowling or belay partner.

While your relationship with your mentee is ultimately up to you, GUIDE hosts regular events & socials throughout the year to stay in touch with your mentee. Our communications team will provide regular updates by emails on prospective conversation topics and reflection prompts so keep an eye out for emails from whartonguide@wharton.upenn.edu

In addition, we host regular professional development and networking events open to the greater undergraduate community such as MBA panels, interviewing workshops, and speed casing events. We'll reach out to you with opportunities to volunteer if you profile matches the event topic.

Oh no! If your mentee is unresponsive, let us know at whartonguide@wharton.upenn.edu and we'll work with you to identify alternative solutions or next steps.

Interesting point. Mentorship can be a 2 way street, so if you want to, why not? As for making it official, we'll take this into consideration.

Drop us a line at whartonguide@wharton.upenn.edu and a member of our leadership team will follow-up.