MBA schools want to know who you REALLY are. Here's how they can do it.

According to The Wall Street Journal, New York University's Stern School of Business is trying to get a better sense for who their applicants really are by asking the people who know them best. Their friends. The idea is that your friends have the truest measure of your emotional intelligence and will freely and accurately share that information in a letter of recommendation.

But if they truly are your friends, they will take your EQ and bump it up several notches to make you look like a potential Dalai Lama, MBA. An exceedingly laudatory letters of recommendation would be an indication that you have the ability to forge relationships in exchange for favours, a sure sign that you will do well as an MBA. You get extra marks if you write the letter yourself and get your friend to sign off on it. (According to a recent survey, about 40% of applicants ghostwrite their own recommendation letters, a practice that schools try to discourage by saying one shouldn't write one's own recommendation letter.)

Self-awareness and empathy are becoming highly desired qualities in MBA candidates as they are two qualities not commonly associated with the degree...

What's the difference between California and the Titanic? When the Titanic went down, it still had its lights on. ~ Harvard MBA Jeff Skilling makes a joke of California's energy crisis

Wharton's School of Business, tired of getting pages and pages overgrown with flowery prose signifying nothing, has capped recommendations at 600 words that will still reveal nothing, but in a more time-efficient manner. This year, Wharton will ask recommenders to select six words from two lists of ten personality characteristics to describe candidates...

TIP: You don't have to choose three words, but if you can't select three good words to recommend the candidate--the person who entrusted you with their future--you may wish to consider applying for an MBA yourself. Would love to know what percentage of recommenders rank humble in their top three, or don't mention emotionally stable.

Oh, so much ado about nothing! If MBA schools really wanted to know what candidates are really like, all they need to do is look at their transcripts from grades one to three.

Lynne has mastered the concepts in Mr Whiskers, but has trouble working with blocks. She is the only child I ever taught who developed a work plan for her math cards. Lynne enjoys performing funny skits for the class and playing games at recess, but is otherwise invisible, with the exception of the time she challenged Carol Evans to a breath-holding contest and passed out.

That, my friends, is all you need to know about the real me. I have trouble foreseeing the outcomes of my actions, and that is why as a child I stuck my head in a triangular metal tower (my mother had to call a fireman to extract me) and why I applied for an MBA. It took me fifteen years to extract myself from the results of my MBA, although my head is still stuck on it. I can't look at anything without wanting to SWOT it.

Perhaps the question we should ask potential MBAs is: "If you google the phrase 'successful MBAs' the names Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk do not appear, but Shaquille O'Neil does. So why you would rather study business than do it?"

What do you think, dear reader? How would you go about selecting the ideal MBA candidate? The best comment gets an honorary MBA from IOU.

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