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