u/Aggravating-Aerie175

So I was filling out my fraternities alumni list because it had been barely updated since like 2010 and as I’m filling it out I’m seeing a ton of alumni are now SWEs. In fact it turns out we have an alumni at pretty much half of big tech as it stands. This would’ve been very useful to know during my sophomore year during internship searching but it’s something I plan to use during junior year heavily. My question is how much do alumni connections like this matter? I obviously have to pass interviews but do referrals usually put you up in standing to at least get those interviews? I’ve heard mixed opinions from people when it comes to SWE as opposed to Finance