How to break into a BB 101

Got a bit of a story and was hoping to get the opinion of the community: A good friend in undergrad decided to (like me) do a 1 year masters program following undergrad with the hopes of it acting as a "take-two" breaking into IB. I've watched him strike out, not land first rounds, get ghosted after a superday, etc. While in the library filling applications, he goes "screw it they can't screen for this" turns laptop to show me and on the application he's filling out, has checked the box for "other" regarding the gender question. Fast forward about a month and he has an offer in hand. Granted, he did eventually recieve another offer at a different BB and took it, but still, I cant' help but ask myself, coincidence? Pure luck? A diversity hack?

Extremely interested to hear other people's view points on this one