{"id":29923,"date":"2025-07-14T10:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T14:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?p=29923"},"modified":"2025-07-14T10:35:49","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T14:35:49","slug":"mba-admissions-myths-destroyed-do-alumni-connections-help-get-you-admitted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mba-admissions-myths-destroyed-do-alumni-connections-help-get-you-admitted\/","title":{"rendered":"MBA Admissions Myths Destroyed: Do Alumni Connections Help Get You Admitted?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">From time to time, we at mbaMission visit admissions officers at the top-ranked business schools, which gives us the opportunity to ask rather frank questions. On one such visit, we urged an admissions officer to give us the truth about the extent of alumni influence in the admissions process, and the response we got was rather surprising: \u201cWe get ten letters each year from [<em>a\u00a0globally famous alumnus<\/em>], telling us that this or that MBA candidate is the greatest thing since sliced bread. He gets upset when we don\u2019t admit \u2018his\u2019 applicants, but what makes him think that he deserves to decide ten spots in our class?\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry\">\n<div class=\"entry\">\n<p>Many applicants fret about their lack of personal alumni connection with their target schools, and the myth persists that\u00a0admission to business school\u00a0is about\u00a0who you know rather than who you are or what you can offer. Of course, these latter qualities are much more important, and a standout applicant who knows no graduates at all from the MBA program they are targeting is still a standout applicant and should get in\u2014just as a weak applicant who knows a large number of alumni or a particularly well-known graduate is still a weak applicant and should\u00a0<em>not<\/em>\u00a0get in. Clearly, some extreme exceptions exist where influence can be exerted, but \u201cstandard\u201d applicants do not need to worry that every seat at the top programs has already been claimed by someone with good connections.<\/p>\n<p>Keep in mind that the admissions committees want to ensure that a diversity of ideas and experiences is represented in the classroom. Every top MBA class includes people from various socioeconomic backgrounds, nationalities, religions, professional backgrounds, ages, and so on. Harvard Business School, for example, has more than 900 students in each incoming class, and the vast majority of these students do not personally know a CEO or the president of a country. And who knows\u2014these days, such connections could even be a liability.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From time to time, we at mbaMission visit admissions officers at the top-ranked business schools, which gives us the opportunity to ask rather frank questions. On one such visit, we urged an admissions officer to give us the truth about the extent of alumni influence in the admissions process, and the response we got was &hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mba-admissions-myths-destroyed-do-alumni-connections-help-get-you-admitted\/\">Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;<i class=\"fal fa-sm fa-angle-right\"><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":37688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[179,102],"class_list":["post-29923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-admissions-myths-destroyed","tag-admissions-myths","tag-alumni"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Do Alumni Connections Get You Admitted to Business School?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Many applicants fret about their lack of personal alumni connections with their target business schools and the...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mba-admissions-myths-destroyed-do-alumni-connections-help-get-you-admitted\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do Alumni Connections Get You Admitted to Business School?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Many applicants fret about their lack of personal alumni connections with their target business schools and the...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mba-admissions-myths-destroyed-do-alumni-connections-help-get-you-admitted\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"mbaMission - 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