In response to widespread support for mentoring schemes in higher education this article calls for a more critical investigation of the dynamics of power and control, which are intrinsic to the mentoring process, and questions presumptions that mentoring brings only positive benefits to its participants. It provides this more critical appraisal by using evidence from a mentoring project at one university in the UK. Attention is drawn to three keys issues: first, to the highly formalised nature of the mentoring project; second, to the extent to which the project socialises mentees to 'fit in' to university life; and third, to tensions in the mentoring relationship which centre on academic skills development. Together these issues allow the beginning of a more critical interpretation of how mentoring operates as a form of institutional control, as well as opening up, for scrutiny, some of mentoring's often taken-for-granted positive effects.