<p>One way that the strategy posited in post #9 could work is to matriculate at a top business school, then withdraw as soon as feasible: ideally before the first term even starts, or if that’s not possible, then after the first term. That way, your name will be officially entered into the student database, and B-schools will confirm that you really were a former student (albeit not a graduate). You will also have full access to the alumni database. Furthermore, and probably most importantly, most schools will allow you to return to complete your degree within a set period of time. </p>
<p>I know a girl who has already withdrawn from Harvard Business School twice to pursue other endeavors. It’s actually a cunningly clever strategy: if her business endeavors work out, then she doesn’t really need an MBA. If they don’t, oh well, she just goes back to Harvard. In any case, she has a slot reserved for her. Financiers would say that she maintains ‘option value’ of returning to school.</p>
<p>But, like I said, what I cannot see is somebody actually trying to shop around just the acceptance letter from a B-school, because, after all, how exactly would you know that it’s genuine? Schools aren’t going to confirm who they admitted. {They’ll confirm who matriculated, but not who was admitted.} It’s not that hard to falsify an admit letter that is indistinguishable from the real thing: if they can do it for driver’s licenses or even passports, surely they can do it for admit letters that lack watermarks, holograms, or even the most basic of anti-counterfeit measures. Surely the people here who were admitted to top B-schools would agree that it wouldn’t be that hard to generate a fake letter.</p>