WHO you know is as important as what you know, as anyone who has ever done business, applied for a job, or called in a favour from friends knows. Alumni networks are an important part of business schools’ marketing: glossy websites trumpet the strength and depth of former MBAs who once attended the school, and where they have ended up in the world of employment.

The school that tops The Economist’s business school rankings for alumni networks, Henley Business School at the University of Reading, makes great play of its alumni network on its own website. The school has 70,000 alumni spread across 150 countries; it has 33 formal regional and country-based international alumni groups, and a vibrant LinkedIn community. Events for alumni occur around the globe at a rate of nearly one a week.



Four of the top five (and seven of the top 15) business schools with the best potential to network are in Europe, including INSEAD, alumni even club together to drum up funding for potential INSEAD students who could not afford tuition, as we have previously reported. Boniswa Lakheni Ntshingila gained a partial scholarship to INSEAD after an alumni read our article; she completed her MBA in July 2016, entering the alumni network herself and promising to “pay it forward” by helping others.



The Economist’s business-school rankings take into account the importance of alumni networks when comparing institutions to one another, but the “potential to network” is the least important of the criteria taken into account when compiling the league table, accounting for 10% of the weighting of a business school’s final rating. The ratio of MBA alumni to current full-time MBA students, the number of overseas alumni chapters, and how students perceive their school’s alumni networks are considered in equal proportions when calculating a school’s potential to network.



Given the importance business schools place on their alumni networks the relatively low importance this newspaper places on them may seem curious, but it is validated by independent research. A study of students worldwide who are investigating business schools, carried out by CarringtonCrisp, an education consultancy, shows that just one in five prospective students say alumni profiles are important content to put on a business school’s website—the least useful part of a school’s marketing. Still, it might be that students don't fully appreciate the importance of their networks until after they leave, and need to call in a favour.