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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowWhen Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business graduates its latest class on Dec. 20, its newly minted MBAs will push the number of living Kelley alumni over 100,000.
The sheer size puts Kelley in a small group of schools with such massive networks. NYU’s Stern School has more than 100,000; Wharton alums number over 90,000.
Is 100,000 better than, say, 95,000? Of course not, but in general, a bigger network can mean a wider net, both for schools, which rely on graduates for fundraising, and for students, who lean on alumni for career help.
Prospective Kelley students ranked “alumni network” the third most-important quality when choosing a school, behind rankings and career services respectively, said Kelley Dean Idalene Kesne.
On the other hand, partisans of small schools often say that their alumni networks are more tightly knit and more inclined to be helpful, because there are so few of them. It goes both ways.
Mark McLaren, NYU Stern class of 2007, said he got into several more affordable schools but chose Stern for the contacts. And, in fact, an alum helped McClaren land his first internship while in school.
“Business is all about people,” says McClaren.
With size comes scale. The Kelley school has alumni in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and 106 different countries. Although the average age of an alum is 46, the oldest one is 108 and graduated in 1929. There are a few others in their hundreds, too, including the oldest female alumna, who is 105 and graduated in 1932. Ostensibly she is no longer hiring interns.
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