Four years ago in Harvard Business School's Hamilton Hall dormitory, a tightly-knit group of first-year Business School students spent their nights tossing around ideas for making money.

One stuck: a Web site that would inform college students of the events happening at their schools through campus-specific Web pages.

That idea has since become Mascot Network Inc--a 23-person company that reaches 20,000 students. It has a Harvard-educated president and CEO, and a fifth of its employees have a degree from the University.

The story of Mascot Network is only one of many success stories from the Harvard network--graduates who find that their common bonds to other alumni help them get ahead in business and in life.

But there are limits to this network's power, alumni say. It helps when you're asking for advice from other graduates or just trying to get your foot in the door.

When seeking a job from another Harvard graduate, alumni say, you're better off relying on the widespread respect accorded the Harvard name than seeking a special deal out of your common connection to the University.

Spinning the Web

Students begin pulling together the strands of their Harvard network in undergraduate clubs and dining halls. The threads intertwine, alumni say, through casual contacts, business relationships and alumni clubs.

"You make friendships and build relationships that last a lifetime. You feel you know them in a [special] way," says Harvey V. Fineberg '67, University Provost.

Some organizations like The Harvard Lampoon, The Harvard Crimson and final clubs are especially proficient at building close relationships between members that stand the test of time.

The Women's Leadership Project, founded in 1988, aims to give undergraduate women the same networking opportunities as their male peers--both with their classmates and with alumnae.

"Networking is intimidating for some women," says Gretchen A. Hoff '00, last year's director of the Women's Leadership Network, a subset of the project. "Because Harvard has been a male-dominated institution for so long and so many alumni are male, I think it is important for women to have an 'old girls club.'"

"Hopefully it will help someone land a job," Hoff adds.

She says that it is sometimes more difficult for women to make their way in professions like investment banking and consulting where there are few female role models.

"I have benefited from and participated in Harvard feminist networks--as an undergraduate, graduate student and most recently a faculty member," says Ann Pellegrini '84, who taught at Harvard and is now an associate professor of women's studies at Barnard College.

She worked at the Murray Research Center on a Radcliffe internship during the summer between her junior and senior years at Harvard. Her supervisor from that summer became a good friend and now works as the policy director at a major feminist organization in Washington.

"I have connected feminist students interested in doing activist work...to her organization," Pellegrini says. "The students were hired on their merits, although it did not hurt that they had letters of reference from someone my friend knows and trusts."

Alumni clubs around the country--ranging from those who hold a few backyard barbecues a year to the New York club, which has its own building complete with squash courts--encourage their members to develop contacts within the network.

Jonathan L. Miller '67 has been president of the Harvard-Radcliffe Club of Central New York for a year. He says he's trying to liven up his once-sleepy club in order to provide more networking opportunities.

Miller says that many students have lined up summer jobs through the contacts they made at the club.

A Tangled Web

Alumni say the relationships they form in college and nurture as graduates often pay off dividends in their professional life.

Mascot Network's president, Jaja S. Jackson '95, founded his company with 13 other classmates at Harvard business school. He has since tried to recruit undergraduates by postering in Houses.

"It's huge," Jackson says of the network. "It's the most valuable thing I think I've encountered besides my own neighborhood ties."

Stephen W. Pollock '84, president of WetFeet.com, an Internet site for job seekers, says he got his start through Harvard alumni he had never met.

An East Asian studies concentrator as an undergraduate, Pollock decided that he wanted to put his newfound knowledge to use at a company in Japan.

Through Harvard alumni he knew, he lined up informational interviews about a career in East Asia. When he applied to Mitsubishi international, both his interviewer and the person who hired him were Harvard Business School alumni.

"If you share an affiliation, that opens a lot of doors," Pollock said.

Often, some graduates say, all they need from other graduates is advice.

"When a phone call comes in from a Harvard student, a Harvard graduate will be more likely to take the extra five minutes," says Gregory S. Gottlieb, a consultant and recruiting director at Boston Consulting Group who attended Stanford as an undergraduate and the Wharton School of Business.

But why do Harvard graduates go out of their way to help their fellow alumni?

"There is a sense of giving back in the form of advice and counsel," says Alan M. Kantrow '69, chief knowledge officer at Monitor Group in Boston.

Where Does it Lead?

But alumni agree that networking cannot guarantee success.

"I wouldn't hire someone just because they're from Winthrop House," says James H. Rowe III '73, former vice president for government, community and public affairs.

And some alumni say they think the network of alumni has never touched on their lives. The prominent Harvard name and the University's stellar reputation have given them opportunity enough, they say.

"It's the individual merits that count, not the network," says D. Ronald Daniel, treasurer of the University and former managing director of McKinsey & Co. consultants. "Who you know is not nearly as important as who you are."

"Whatever loyalty I feel with the College has nothing to do with those kinds of judgements," says Elliot R. Cutler '68, who was associate director of the Office of Management and Budget. "They are likely to be smart. If they went to Harvard there's a bit of an edge."