I sometimes wonder how effective stunts like this are. About 10 years ago, I had a job opening the mail in an MBA admissions office. Most of the application w

I sometimes wonder how effective stunts like this are. About 10 years ago, I had a job opening the mail in an MBA admissions office. Most of the application was required to be filed online; the only exceptions were a transcript and two letters of reference. My job was to open the mail, file the allowable papers, and throw out everything else. Easily 80% of the mail that came through the door went into the trash. People submitted all kinds of things, from hard copies of their entire application to photographs to fancy art portfolios. The first day was heartbreaking as I felt like I was throwing away people's life's work, but when I asked my boss for advice, she said it was a conscious decision on the part of the admissions committee: they didn't want to unfairly disadvantage people who followed their instructions. After a while, this system made sense. More people tried stunts to bypass the regular admissions process than there were slots in the admitted class. Submitting banned supplemental material was less an indicator that someone was a creative thinker than that they'd read a book that said admissions stunts work.