Gatekeeping Graduate School

Over at Pea Soup there is a lively discussion about advising students applying to graduate programs in philosophy:

http://peasoup.typepad.com/peasoup/2009/02/gatekeepers-to-the-profession.html

The idea being floated is that there is an implicitly conservative tendency in the way that many of us approach such advising. We spend a lot of time talking about what graduate school is like and what the profession is like, and perhaps we also give advice about the most beneficial behavioral strategies for succeeding. In doing so we implicitly endorse the current culture and practices of the profession - the bad along with the good. What sorts of experiences have you had in advising undergraduate regarding graduate study? Do you ever discourage students from applying? Do you go beyond giving advice? That is, do you help them put together a package and prepare them for the professionalized atmosphere of graduate school?