{"id":4953,"date":"2011-03-01T09:21:02","date_gmt":"2011-03-01T15:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?p=4953"},"modified":"2011-03-03T08:49:45","modified_gmt":"2011-03-03T14:49:45","slug":"mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission Admission: I Don&#8217;t Know Any Alumni!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>We find that because the pool of MBA candidates is so anonymous, many applicants believe that any minimal difference that exists between them and their fellow candidates represents a huge  disadvantage. For example, a candidate may have no alumni connection to the school and\u00a0therefore becomes anxious that he\/she is already &#8220;behind&#8221; at the starting line. We can assure you that if you are a strong candidate, you will not be \u201cdinged\u201d by a school if you don\u2019t  know any of the program&#8217;s alumni. In fact, the vast majority of candidates will not have direct connections to alumni from their target schools.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom line is that in some cases, if you know a powerful alumnus or alumna, he or she can likely help you in your candidacy. However, the standout candidate without an alumni connection will generally still succeed, and the weak  candidate with the alumni connection will still fail. So focus on crafting your best application possible, and do not worry about minor perceived weaknesses. You can succeed on your own,\u00a0regardless of whom you know&#8212;or don&#8217;t know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. We find that because the pool of MBA candidates is so anonymous, many applicants believe that any minimal difference that exists between them and their fellow candidates represents a huge disadvantage. For example, a candidate may have no alumni &hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni\/\">Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;<i class=\"fal fa-sm fa-angle-right\"><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mission-admission"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mission Admission: I Don&#039;t Know Any Alumni! | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting<\/title>\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\/mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mission Admission: I Don&#039;t Know Any Alumni! | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. We find that because the pool of MBA candidates is so anonymous, many applicants believe that any minimal difference that exists between them and their fellow candidates represents a huge disadvantage. For example, a candidate may have no alumni &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-03-01T15:21:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-03-03T14:49:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-fallback-image.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeremy Shinewald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jeremy Shinewald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mission Admission: I Don't Know Any Alumni! | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mission Admission: I Don't Know Any Alumni! | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","og_description":"Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. We find that because the pool of MBA candidates is so anonymous, many applicants believe that any minimal difference that exists between them and their fellow candidates represents a huge disadvantage. For example, a candidate may have no alumni &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni\/","og_site_name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","article_published_time":"2011-03-01T15:21:02+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-03-03T14:49:45+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-fallback-image.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Jeremy Shinewald","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jeremy Shinewald","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":["Article","BlogPosting"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni\/"},"author":{"name":"Jeremy Shinewald","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/74216774a1761e746e2426c9c8171f5f"},"headline":"Mission Admission: I Don&#8217;t Know Any Alumni!","datePublished":"2011-03-01T15:21:02+00:00","dateModified":"2011-03-03T14:49:45+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni\/"},"wordCount":209,"commentCount":2,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Mission Admission"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni\/","name":"Mission Admission: I Don't Know Any Alumni! | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-03-01T15:21:02+00:00","dateModified":"2011-03-03T14:49:45+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-dont-know-any-alumni\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Mission Admission: I Don&#8217;t Know Any Alumni!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/","name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","description":"World&#039;s Leading MBA Admissions Consulting Firm","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"mbaMission","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-organization-logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-organization-logo.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"mbaMission"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/74216774a1761e746e2426c9c8171f5f","name":"Jeremy Shinewald","description":"In addition to being Founder and President of mbaMission, Jeremy Shinewald is a Darden MBA, published author, and the recipient of Poets&amp;Quants\u2019 Lifetime Achievement Award in MBA Admissions Consulting. 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