On November 6, 2012, as the results of the presidential election rolled in, a member of the Harvard Business School Class of 2010 considered ending it all. "The thought crossed my mind to jump off my penthouse apartment balcony," he wrote his fellow classmates yesterday. Sure, he had a lot to live for: friends, family, the earthly delights afforded to him by living in Southern California ("surfing, mountains, 78 degree sunshine, and hot babes everywhere"), as well as a new company and all that came with it (relationships with celebrities that straddle the line between "friend and service provider," as well as invites to "the VMAs and private concerts in Vegas"). But he also had a lot of reasons to be good and angry at the world, including but not limited to: the state of California being "filled with so many hippie liberals" he just might snap and in doing so "choke out a street bum," people who "sit around with their hand out and expect to be fed," and, most vexingly, the reelection of Barack Obama. And while he did not in fact end up leaping from his penthouse balcony apartment that night, make no mistake, he was and is exceedingly pissed about the direction this country is going, which is south on the Pacific Coast Highway right straight to hell. And whereas the endless stream of bums and hobos and hippies he encounters each and every day the second he steps out of his penthouse apartment probably would take the easy way out, because that's what they do, he's better than that. So instead, he went to bed, got up, sat down at his computer and channeled his anger into something productive: a list of suggestions for how we can get America back on track and in four years, rest it from the hands of the commie holding it hostage, like forcing candidates to use bullet points and telling people who don't believe in capitalism to pack their shit because in 20 minutes a van is coming to ship their non-contributing zero asses off to a country where it's not actually a "privilege" to live. First, though, some life updates, because it really has been too long.

She doesn't need to go to b-school (her sense of business is "innate"), but it's on her to do list nevertheless.

US News has regaled us with its annual ranking of the top business schools. I know you need a safe space to get huffy about perceived slights (be it your MBA program being lower than you believe is accurate or by having to suffer the indignity of an inferior institution being too close on the list), so let it out here and now.

After years of receiving scripted answers to questions from would-be business school students re: why they want to go to Harvard/Wharton/Stanford/Sloan or what they think of a company's earnings potential or where they see themselves in five to ten years or what they ate for breakfast, admissions officers have lately been taking a new tack in an attempt to see the "real" side of applicants. Hoping to get a little "unrehearsed honesty" and insight into who these people really are, prospective students are being asked to submit "reflections" ("a short, off-the-cut note that must be submitted within 24 hours of an admissions interview") and take part in "team-based discussions," for which they're told to "relax, be genuine," not worry about giving the "right" answer, and just say what they really think, rather than what a coach told them to say they think. Unfortunately, Harvard and Wharton officials apparently have no idea who they're dealing with here. You can't make future b-school students relax and be genuine! You can't! You won't!