the deal with "alumni" status

[UCDavisdude]

hey yall. got a quick question and would like to hear your views on the matter. lets say student A goes to a university 1 as an undergrad. student b goes to university 2 as an undergrad, then goes to university 1 for graduate school and graduates. does student b have as much of a claim as "alumni" from university 1 as student a does? so basically, are both considered alumni in the say "light"??i ask this because when i hear stories, or people say where they are an alumnus(not sure if thats the correct form) from, they are often talking about thier undergrad institution as opposed to where they went to graduate school. for instance, would harvard admissions give as much wieght to a legacy whose parents went to harvard med as opposed to a legacy whose parents went to harvard undergrad? just a thougt....feel free to chime in.

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[nick_carraway]

I think you're an alumnus at both schools, as far as record keeping matters. How much school spirit you feel toward each school is probably going to depend on how long you spent at the school and how much you did with your time there. A one year, non-thesis masters student at Stanford will probably not feel as much pride in going there as someone who had spent four years of undergrad at the same campus. A heavily invested PhD student at Stanford, however, could feel even more school spirit.

As far as legacy matters, though, I would assume that parents who went to a school's med program have more weight than if they only went to a school's undergrad program. Tons of people go to undergrad but far fewer get to attend med school (as we're finding out this cycle). Legacy only matters if a program is exclusive and med school certainly fits that criteria.

Anyway, why?