Mentor Connection to School Helpful?

[latodfw]

For some schools such as USC and WashU, they ask on their secondaries if you have connections to the school. For USC they ask if you have a research mentor and/or a friend affiliated with the medical school and WashU asks if you have a research mentor who was trained at WashU. Why do they ask these questions? Do applicants get a (slight) bump up with this connection?

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[Angus Avagadro]

For some schools such as USC and WashU, they ask on their secondaries if you have connections to the school. For USC they ask if you have a research mentor and/or a friend affiliated with the medical school and WashU asks if you have a research mentor who was trained at WashU. Why do they ask these questions? Do applicants get a (slight) bump up with this connection?

Sometimes someone you know is more influential than what you know. Politics is everywhere.

 

[gyngyn]

For some schools such as USC and WashU, they ask on their secondaries if you have connections to the school. For USC they ask if you have a research mentor and/or a friend affiliated with the medical school and WashU asks if you have a research mentor who was trained at WashU. Why do they ask these questions? Do applicants get a (slight) bump up with this connection?

It could go either way.
They're probably just managing blow-back.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I can't speak for either school on whether those connections help you in any way other than (in all likelihood) as a cherry on top of a great application (known as a "plus factor"). But suffice to say, proof of networking helps.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Probably not unless he or she is a big shot.

These schools have thousands of faculty

For example USC;

The medical school has over 1,500 full-time faculty members plus 2,400 voluntary faculty physicians, and students benefit from its exceptionally low student-faculty ratio of 2.7:1.

WUSTL:

The School of Medicine has more than 2,700 full-time faculty members.

 

[LizzyM]

It could go either way.
They're probably just managing blow-back.

This would be my assumption, too.