Will that be one mentor or two? A cross‐sectional study of women's mentoring during college

College women are positioned at the juncture of adolescence and adulthood, as well as school and work. This study sought to identify whether the structural model underlying the mentoring of college women is dyadic in nature, as it is in adolescence and school settings, or networking in nature, as it is in adulthood and workplace settings. Traditional‐aged college women in their first year (n = 146) and fourth year (n = 115) participated in a mentoring survey. First‐year college students were more likely to seek and experience mentoring in the form of a dyadic relationship with one mentor, often with a family member or a recent high‐school teacher, while fourth‐year college students were more likely to seek and experience mentoring in the form of a network of multiple mentors, which included college faculty, family and peers. Both groups of students experienced psychosocial mentoring functions and sponsorship from mentors, but fourth‐year students reported more challenge from their mentors than first‐year students did. Implications for designing developmentally appropriate mentoring initiatives that simultaneously challenge female stereotypes are discussed.