<p>I’ve been thinking about this for some time.</p>
<p>Advice is usually valid when one person has access to more information than the other (either in terms of personal experience or in terms of background knowledge), or when one person can remind the other person of thoughts that the other person may be prone to forget. </p>
<p>Advice is only well given if</p>
<p>(a) the adviser has good intentions
(b) the adviser knows you well enough such that he/she knows what you value and what you don’t value, and does not assume that his/her own values and beliefs will project to yours
(c) the adviser has explored all possibilities that are relevant to your situation
(d) the adviser thinks about whether his advice is cliche or not (about whether you have heard the same piece of advice many times over or not)
(d) the adviser and you are sufficiently similar enough in thought patterns such that both of you would reliably manage to arrive at the same conclusion given that you would have access to the same information that the adviser would give out</p>
<p>So, (a) is obvious. (b) is often obvious, but one of the main problems is that advisers often project their goals and values onto you. Most people are sufficiently similar enough such that they are willing to take advice from other people in the same community as them - even though neither of them specify how their values may differ from each others. Sometimes this leads to conflict when the advice is not taken. The word “from my experience” should always be taken with a grain of salt. Sometimes though, it’s wise not to reveal too much info to the adviser either, in case the adviser would otherwise dislike your views.</p>
<p>(c) is clear as well. An adviser certainly isn’t a good one if he withholds vital information for a goal from you (for example, not telling you about the USNCO if you’re interested in chemistry and want to pursue it beyond the curricular aspect).</p>
<p>(d) is clear as well. The advice “get good GPA and test scores” means little because it’s so cliche. The advice to “go for the AIME” is cliche in AoPS.</p>
<p>(e) is probably a recasting of (b). It may be redundant, but perhaps I’ll keep it in this thought scheme for now.</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>