Comment by laidoffamazon

It's relevant - some companies have seats effectively reserved for them at good grad schools for masters programs for their employees, even today at less prestigious companies like Carrier and GE - the selectivity isn't based on who won beauty pageants or had 7 first author NeurIPS papers like it is for typical MBA and PhD programs at the same institutions.

Getting a Stanford MS while working was somewhat normal then (possible for mere mortals and not superhumans) if you worked at the right company, not really the same as getting into undergrad at all.