Solution: Common board requirement, in brief - NYT Crossword

At first, I figured the board in “Common board requirement, in brief” was a New York City cooperative apartment board, in which case, my gosh, the answer would probably be “DNA sample” because then the board could clone you, rendition your clone and sonically overwhelm him or her into confessing every sin you’ve committed in your life. But this is actually more like one of those advisory boards that tells a corporation just how much it can get away with without bad “optics” as far as price gouging, layoffs, pollution and what have you. So the answer is MBA DEGREE.