The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth has roughly 9,000 living alumni, and although that figure may sound small compared with a larger school’s alumni base, numerous students and graduates we interviewed reported that Tuck has an active and close-knit alumni community. Through their continued involvement with the school as mentors, visiting executives, recruiting contacts and internship providers, Tuck alumni keep an open channel between the school and the business world. Tuck students we interviewed could not say enough about the strength of student-alumni interactions, emphasizing that the vitality of Tuck’s close-knit community endures long after graduation.
One second-year student we interviewed shared that he had pretty high expectations with regard to the school’s alumni network, “but still underestimated how strong the network can be.” He explained, “The connections were instant. I received same-day responses, all the time. There is a strong pay-it-forward mentality and a genuine interest in seeing people from Tuck do well. Alums go out of their way to help with networking, job preparation, anything.”
Tuck alumni also stay connected to the school through its annual campaign. According to Tuck’s Web site, the school boasts the highest giving rate—67%—of all U.S. MBA programs. In fact, Tuck’s giving rate tops that of other business schools by more than 30 percentage points, according to a July 2009 press release, and the school’s current online annual giving page boasts, “Tuck’s giving rate continues to set the standard among business schools: the alumni participation for TAG [Tuck Annual Giving] ’11 reached 70.5%. This is a new record for Tuck, and it sets the standard for all MBA programs by a wide margin.”
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