I'll go ahead and pile on here, but with a little story as well. I worked with a guy that did a SMP with "strong linkage" at a very respected school. He had a 3.8 and said he had good relationships with professors, etc. And he didn't get an interview at that school the next cycle. Mainly because they interview about the top 15% of the MS class, and it's about 200 students per class. It used to have "strong linkage" because there were only 50 or so students in it each year. But the linkage isn't so strong anymore. So yeah, take the acceptance.