????徒勞無功

????每收到一次拒絕，他都會(huì)因?yàn)樽约涸跍?zhǔn)備GMAT和申請(qǐng)學(xué)校過程中所犯的錯(cuò)誤而深深自責(zé)。

????他曾決定取得比第一次710分更高的GMAT分?jǐn)?shù)。他在博客中寫道他“很有可能再次參加考試，目標(biāo)是750分左右。”但在為第二次考試努力學(xué)習(xí)的時(shí)候，他卻遇到了阻礙。

????他說道：“我被升職了，我得到了一份額外的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)職務(wù)。我獲得了領(lǐng)導(dǎo)一個(gè)特別項(xiàng)目的機(jī)會(huì)。我開始寫博客。我在公益事業(yè)上投入了太多精力?！?/p>

????格蘭特每天早上4:30起床，5點(diǎn)開始學(xué)習(xí)，學(xué)習(xí)一兩個(gè)小時(shí)之后去上班，然后去做公益。每天晚上，他會(huì)從8點(diǎn)開始學(xué)習(xí)兩個(gè)小時(shí)。周末如果沒有志愿者工作，他便選擇加班。

????“我每天睡四個(gè)小時(shí)，持續(xù)了六個(gè)月時(shí)間。”

????他在八周時(shí)間里，總共投入了150個(gè)小時(shí)準(zhǔn)備GMAT考試。他說道：“學(xué)習(xí)的質(zhì)量并不高。我的腦子要思考無數(shù)個(gè)問題，GMAT只是其中之一?！彼粌H“身心俱疲”，而且根本沒有達(dá)到200個(gè)小時(shí)的目標(biāo)，甚至與第一次準(zhǔn)備GMAT的190個(gè)小時(shí)也相去甚遠(yuǎn)。

????他第一次準(zhǔn)備塔克商學(xué)院的申請(qǐng)和面試共用了50個(gè)小時(shí)，而第二次五所學(xué)校的準(zhǔn)備時(shí)間總共也沒有那么多。他說道：“這太令人尷尬了。我以為我會(huì)用60個(gè)小時(shí)。或許吧。這已經(jīng)是我的極限?？赡軙?huì)更少，可能在40個(gè)小時(shí)左右。真是太糟糕了?！比缓笏吐暠г沟溃骸罢嬖撍?！”

????他聘請(qǐng)了一位顧問，但并沒有進(jìn)行任何信息性面試練習(xí)。他考察了除耶魯之外的所有學(xué)校。

????在沒有收到哈佛和沃頓的面試機(jī)會(huì)之后，耶魯也拒絕了他的申請(qǐng)。格蘭特說：“我想：‘天哪，我今年可能沒機(jī)會(huì)進(jìn)商學(xué)院了?！?/p>

????拒絕依次到來，他也變得越來越擔(dān)憂?！氨粍P洛格拒絕之后，我想到：‘我真的有麻煩了?！?/p>

????與此同時(shí)，格蘭特的職業(yè)也在發(fā)生變化。他打算放棄在航空航天領(lǐng)域的工作。公司計(jì)劃裁員，而剩下的人將面臨額外的工作負(fù)擔(dān)?！拔议_始兩邊下注。我在尋找其他機(jī)會(huì)?！?/p>

????沉浸于自我懷疑

????連續(xù)被商學(xué)院拒絕，讓格蘭特開始懷疑自己。這是一種他從來不曾有過的情緒。他問自己：“我真的是最佳員工嗎？我自己有能力做什么事情嗎？”

????“所以，找另外一份工作便顯得非常重要。”

????凱洛格商學(xué)院拒絕他的申請(qǐng)時(shí)，他已經(jīng)參加了洛杉磯一家娛樂公司的電話面試。

????格蘭特不會(huì)放棄自己的MBA夢(mèng)想。他還會(huì)申請(qǐng)前10大商學(xué)院，不過可能只從中選擇三至四所學(xué)校，并且不會(huì)申請(qǐng)哈佛商學(xué)院。他計(jì)劃為自己將申請(qǐng)的每一所學(xué)校拿出30個(gè)小時(shí)準(zhǔn)備時(shí)間，GMAT考試的學(xué)習(xí)時(shí)間目標(biāo)為300個(gè)小時(shí)。格蘭特說道：“我真的希望能得到760分。這個(gè)分?jǐn)?shù)將很有幫助。”

????格蘭特表示自己之所以寫博客，是因?yàn)樗霂椭瑯釉谏暾?qǐng)MBA的其他人。這也符合他對(duì)公益事業(yè)和志愿者工作的興趣。他說道：“這是我的人生使命。我希望其他人獲得成功，這是我的快樂之源?！?/p>

????“這也是最讓人受傷的地方。就好像我在說：‘嘿，我來帶路，大家跟我來，’然后，我摔了一跤?！?/p>

????在他的博客里，火星風(fēng)景照片的下方是他對(duì)被五次拒絕的反思。格蘭特對(duì)讀者們寫道：“我感覺我讓大家失望了。在眾目睽睽之下遭遇失敗，并且承認(rèn)失敗，這簡(jiǎn)直太難了。我非常抱歉?！?/p>

????不過，格蘭特已經(jīng)做好了再次嘗試進(jìn)入頂級(jí)商學(xué)院的準(zhǔn)備，尤其是塔克和凱洛格。這兩所商學(xué)院已經(jīng)給過他足夠高的評(píng)價(jià)，并且提供了面試機(jī)會(huì)。在航空航天行業(yè)從事財(cái)務(wù)工作的經(jīng)歷，讓他很受招生委員會(huì)的喜愛，而且他的新工作也令人印象深刻。他已經(jīng)從前兩次嘗試所犯的錯(cuò)誤中學(xué)到了許多，如果他能將這些經(jīng)驗(yàn)教訓(xùn)付諸實(shí)施，他肯定能在申請(qǐng)和面試時(shí)給學(xué)校留下更好的印象。更高的GMAT分?jǐn)?shù)也將給他額外加分。

????他說道，事實(shí)上，荒涼的火星并不意味著這是一片靈魂的荒原，而是代表了一個(gè)新的前沿。他說道：“那是一個(gè)全新的世界?！保ㄘ?cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：劉進(jìn)龍/汪皓

????審校：任文科

????Running on empty

????With every rejection, he’d beat himself up a little more over the mistakes he’d made during the process of preparing for the GMAT and applying to schools.

????He’d been determined to far surpass his first GMAT score of 710, writing on his blog that he “most likely will be taking it again for a ~750.” But when it came to studying for the test his second time around, the rest of his life got in the way.

????“I got promoted, and then I got an additional leadership responsibility. Another opportunity came up at work for a special project to lead. I started blogging. I’m really heavily involved in non-profits,” he says.

????Grant would wake up at 4:30 a.m., start studying at 5, keep it up for an hour or two, go to work, then go to his non-profit assignment. Each night, he’d resume studying at 8, and put in another couple hours. If he wasn’t doing volunteer work on the weekend, he’d work through his Saturdays and Sundays.

????“I was operating on four hours of sleep for six months.”

????All told, he put in 150 GMAT-prep hours over eight weeks. “It wasn’t good quality studying time,” he says. “My mind was racing on a million different things and the GMAT was just one of them.” Not only was he “completely stressed out,” he hadn’t even come close to hitting his 200-hour goal, or even matching the 190 hours he’d put in when he studied for the GMAT the first time.

????While he’d spent 50 hours preparing for his first Tuck application and interview, he fell far short of that when applying to the five schools, not even hitting the same number for all the schools combined. “This is so embarrassing,” he says. “I think I spent maybe 60 hours. Maybe. That’s being pretty generous with myself. It might’ve been less, it might’ve been closer to 40. It was really bad,” he says, before muttering to himself: “Damn it.”

????He’d hired a consultant, but hadn’t done any practice informational interviews, he says. He visited all the schools, except for Yale.

????After he didn’t receive interviews at Harvard and Wharton, Yale was the next school to reject him. “I was like, ‘Holy shit, I might not even get in (to B-school) this year,’” Grant says.

????The fear grew worse as the rejections added up. “When I got dinged from Kellogg, I was thinking to myself, ‘I’m really in trouble.’”

????Meanwhile, Grant’s career was shifting. He was anticipating disruption at his aerospace industry job. Staff were going to be cut, and those who remained would face additional work burdens. “I basically started hedging my bets. I had started looking at other opportunities.”

????Swimming in a sea of self doubt

????The string of B-school rejections had seeded Grant with self doubt, not a feeling he was used to. “Am I really a top performer?” he asked himself. “Am I capable of doing anything on my own?

????“That’s why it was so important that I applied for another job.”

????By the time Kellogg rejected his application, he had already had a phone interview with the L.A. entertainment firm.

????Grant is not giving up on his MBA dreams. He’s going to apply again to top 10 schools, but probably only three or four, and will likely not apply to Harvard, he says. He plans to spend 30 hours of prep time specific to each school he’ll apply for, and he is shooting for 300 hours of GMAT studying time. “I’m really hoping to get a 760,” Grant says. “That will help.”

????Grant created his blog because he wanted to help other people on the same path, he says. That fits with his interest non-profit and volunteer work. “That’s my life’s mission,” he says. “I want others to succeed, that’s how I get my happiness.

????“That’s what hurt the most. I was like, ‘Hey, I’m going to lead the charge, and everyone follow me,’ and then I, like, tripped.”

????On his blog, beneath the photo of the Martian landscape that tops his revelation about his five rejections, Grant addresses his readers, “I feel that I have let you down,” he writes. “It is incredibly difficult to fail publicly and own up to it. I am deeply sorry.”

????Nevertheless, Grant is clearly well positioned for another attempt at getting into a top program, particularly at Tuck and Kellogg, which had already rated him high enough for an interview. His history working in finance for the aerospace industry makes him attractive to admissions committees, and his new job is impressive. He appears to have learned a great deal about what he did wrong in his first two attempts, and if he applies those lessons, he’s bound to make a better impression in applications and interviews. A higher GMAT score would give him an additional boost.

????It turns out that the stark Martian scene, he says, does not represent a barren wasteland of the soul. It shows, he says, a new frontier. “It’s a whole new world out there.”