被商學院拒絕的感受是什麼樣的

(Poets&Quants) — It was as if he’d climbed up on a high diving board, shouted down to everyone on the pool deck to watch him perform a triple back flip with four twists, bounced a few times to prepare for launch, bounced a few more times to make sure everyone was looking, propelled himself into the air … and missed the pool completely.

這件慘事這麼說吧，就好比他爬到一個高臺跳水板上，大叫着讓泳池邊的人觀看他表演向後翻騰三週轉體四周。他在跳板上跳了幾下準備開始，又跳了幾下確定所有人都在看他，然後高高躍起……結果卻栽到了泳池外面。

Splat.

啪嗒。

Poor Grant. He wasn’t attempting the world’s most difficult dive, but its academic equivalent instead: applying to an ultra-elite MBA program. And while he wasn’t wearing a Speedo on a high board over a pool, he was even more exposed—Grant was standing in the middle of the Internet for all to see.

可憐的格蘭特。當然，他並非真的在嘗試最高難度的跳水動作，而是在進行一次學術方面的高難度嘗試：申請超一流的MBA課程。雖然他沒有像跳水運動員那樣，穿着Speedo站在泳池上方的高臺跳板上，但他暴露得更加徹底——在互聯網上，所有人都能看到格蘭特的失敗。

You may have read his blog, Grant Me Admission, in which he chronicles his quest for a top-tier MBA. It’s received nearly 100,000 page views. And it’s pretty good: enthusiastic, lively, clearly written, full of tips and ideas and lessons learned. Read it, and you’re right there with Grant as he studies for and takes the GMAT, researches schools, visits campuses, analyzes sample essays, and gets interviews. It’s incredibly detailed.

你可能讀過格蘭特的博客“賜我一份錄取吧”，其中詳細記錄了他申請頂級MBA課程的經歷。其頁面瀏覽量已經達到10萬人次。內容也很不錯：充滿熱情，生動詳實，其中包括許多建議和想法，以及他自己總結的教訓。閱讀他的博客時，你就如同在陪着格蘭特一起努力學習，參加GMAT考試，研究學校，考察校園，分析短文範例，參加面試。不能再詳細了！

Which is part of the reason Grant went splat. He wasn’t just applying to top B-schools. He was also working full time, and doing a lot of nonprofit work, plus putting in hours and hours on his blog.

但這也是格蘭特遭遇慘敗的原因之一。他並沒有將全部精力投入到申請頂級商學院上。他還有一份全職工作，同時還在從事大量公益事業，更不用說還要花費大量時間更新博客。

。

他的故事對於正在申請頂級MBA課程的所有人都很有價值。格蘭特沒有專注於進入商學院這個首要目標，結果付出了慘痛的代價。

His story holds a valuable lesson for anyone applying to top MBA programs. Grant failed to focus on Goal No. 1, getting admitted to business school, and he paid a painful price.

最近他在一張荒涼的火星照片下面寫道：

As he writes on a recent post, below a photo of a bleak Martian landscape:

哈佛：拒絕，沒有面試機會

Harvard: Dinged without an interview

沃頓：拒絕，沒有面試機會

Wharton: Dinged without an interview

耶魯：拒絕，沒有面試機會

Yale: Dinged without an interview

凱洛格：拒絕

Kellogg: Dinged

塔克：拒絕

Tuck: Dinged

我不想撒謊；但告訴大家這些結果真的很難。

I’m not going to lie; it is incredibly hard for me to share these results.

當然，正在報考MBA的人都知道，被拒絕是最糟糕的事情，但這也是常事。去年，格蘭特申請的五所商學院，一共收到了超過25,400份申請，但最終被錄取的人數不到3,000人。在這五所商學院中，哈佛商學院的錄取率最低，爲12%，耶魯大學最高，爲24%，總體來說，被這些學院錄取的機率很低。去年，這五所商學院MBA課程的錄取率不足18%。

One unfortunate fumble leads to another, and another

一次不幸的失誤會產生連鎖反應

For a 5’11”, 175-pound, 27-year-old man who enjoys Olympic-style weightlifting and superhero movies, not getting into an elite business school may very well be his first significant failure yet. Grant works in corporate finance, and is now in the process of switching homes and jobs—from the East Coast, working for a Fortune 50 aerospace company, to Los Angeles, where he’ll be working for an entertainment company not far outside the Fortune 50.

對於一個身高1米55、體重175磅、喜歡奧運會舉重項目和超級英雄電影的27歲男性來說，沒有被頂尖商學院錄取可能是他遭遇的第一次重大失敗。格蘭特在公司從事財務工作，目前正在搬家和換工作——從東海岸一家位列《財富》50強的航空航天公司，搬往洛杉磯，即將加入一家排名接近《財富》50強的娛樂公司。

He had suffered a lesser defeat before receiving the five rejections. The year before, Grant had applied to Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business alone, but didn’t get in. He’d at least been wait-listed.

在被五次拒絕之前，他還曾遭遇過一次不太嚴重的打擊。一年前，格蘭特只申請了達特茅茨學院塔克商學院，但未被錄取。不過至少那一次他進入了候選名單。

And that’s another reason why Grant went splat.

這是格蘭特遭遇慘敗的另外一個原因。

After applying to Tuck in October 2013, and languishing on the wait list from December until his August rejection, Grant got a little obsessive, worrying over his prospects of getting in, trying to put numbers to his chances. The fact that a friend with a lower GMAT score had gotten into Tuck the year before after being wait-listed gave Grant hope, which turned out to be false.

2013年10月申請塔克商學院之後，從12月進入候選名單到第二年8月被拒絕，格蘭特如同着魔一般，一直擔心自己能否被錄取，對成功的機率進行了各種計算。之前一年，有一位朋友的GMAT分數更低，但被塔克商學院錄取，這讓格蘭特燃起了希望，結果希望變成了泡影。

“It was probably borderline unhealthy,” he recalls. “I was like an addict. I was constantly looking on forums, and playing the percentage game.”

他回憶說：“我大概是有些不正常了。我就像個癮君子一樣。不停地去查看論壇，計算成功的概率。”

So the next time, after he applied to Harvard, Wharton, Yale, Kellogg, and Tuck, he wasn’t going to make the same mistake and drive himself nuts by fixating on his odds of getting in.

於是，第二次，他申請了哈佛、沃頓、耶魯、凱洛格和塔克。這一次，他不會再犯同樣的錯誤，不想因爲太關注被錄取的機會而讓自己變得神經質。

Instead, he made a bigger mistake. The previous year, while anxiously awaiting an answer from Tuck, he’d remained diligent: he followed up his interview by getting in touch with the interviewers, emailing them once a month—demonstrating his strong interest and perseverance, and keeping himself on their radar. He should’ve done the same this time after interviews with Kellogg and Tuck, but he was trying to prevent the waiting game from consuming him as it had the time before, he says.

但是，他卻犯了一個更大的錯誤。之前一年，在焦急等待塔克商學院的回覆時，他還能保持勤奮：他在面試之後與面試官保持聯繫，每個月發一封電子郵件——證明自己強烈的興趣和毅力，讓對方注意到他的存在。這一次在參加凱洛格和塔克的面試之後，他本應該繼續這樣做，但他說，這一次他卻在儘量避免像上次一樣，因爲他不願再爲這種等待的遊戲去消耗自己了。

“This year I didn’t follow up on those interviews,” he says. “I didn’t email the interviewers. That was really stupid and lazy of me. I just kept putting it off. Really dumb.”

他說道：“今年我沒有在面試之後跟進。我沒有給面試官發郵件。我真是太蠢了。我太懶惰。我一次次推遲。真蠢。”

Not for lack of enthusiasm

並非因爲缺乏熱情

Generally speaking, Grant (who asked that his last name not be revealed because he hasn’t told his employer he’s planning to go to an MBA program), is not a poor candidate. Although he went to a middling California state university for college, he was a full-ride President’s Scholar, led his school’s team in the International Collegiate Business Strategy Competition, earned a 3.7 GPA, and graduated Cum Laude with a BS in accounting.

總體而言，格蘭特（他要求不要透露自己的名字，因爲他還沒有告訴僱主自己計劃去讀MBA）的條件並不差。雖然他讀的是加利福尼亞一所二流州立大學，但他是全額總統獎學金獲得者，他帶領學校的隊伍參加了國際大學生商業戰略競賽，得到了3.7分的平均績點，並以優異成績畢業，取得會計專業學士學位。

For years, Grant had dreamed of earning an MBA. “It was even before I went to college, to my undergrad,” he says. “That’s always been there.”

取得MBA學位是格蘭特多年的夢想。他說：“甚至在上大學之前我就夢想着能讀MBA。”

Before college, he hadn’t refined his B-school ambitions to a particular tier. But after graduation, he arrived at the conclusion that he wanted to get his MBA from a top-10 school, “but if that’s outside the realm of possibility, then top-20,” he says. “If you’re not in the top 20, I can’t even look at you because I’m not going to invest that kind of money without any kind of demonstrated value from the degree.”

上大學之前，他的商學院夢想還只是一個朦朧的概念。但大學畢業之後，他認爲自己希望進入一家美國排名前10的商學院攻讀MBA，“但如果進入前十大商學院的機會渺茫，可以考慮前20名的學校。對於20名以外的商學院，我不會考慮，因爲我不會爲了一個沒有太大價值的學位花那麼多錢，”他說道。

Applying to Tuck, and only Tuck, two years ago was “kind of like my trial thing,” Grant says.

格蘭特說道，兩年前申請塔克商學院，並且只申請了這一所學校，“是對我的一次磨練。”

He had put a lot of effort into the application. He spent almost 200 hours studying for the GMAT and scored 710. To prepare for writing his application and the interview, he met with five Tuck students and interviewed another eight by phone. He reckons he spent 50 hours studying Tuck’s programs, facilities, and professors, reading books, and speaking with MBA program experts. He organized the fruits of all that research into a “crazy document on Tuck,” containing facts, school intricacies, details of programs that interested him, and information gathered from Poets&Quants, Internet forums, articles, and interviews. He visited the school twice, and doesn’t include in the 50-hour total the time spent on those trips.”I really knew the school and what the story was all about,” Grant says.

他在申請時投入了很多精力。他花了近200個小時準備GMAT考試，並且得到了710分。爲了準備申請材料和麪試，他拜訪了五位塔克商學院的學生，並在電話裏向另外八位來自該校的學生請教。按他自己的估算，他一共用了50個小時研究塔克商學院的課程、教師和教授，讀書，與MBA課程專家們交流。他將所有研究成果彙總爲“關於塔克的瘋狂記錄”，其中包括他感興趣的事實、學校裏的複雜情況、課程詳情，以及從Poets&Quants、網絡論壇、文章和採訪中收集的信息。他去學校考察過兩次，這兩次行程總共用去了他50個小時。格蘭特說道：“我真的非常瞭解這所學校和關於它的一切。”

Going over Grant’s enthusiastic posts written during his application process is like reading a diary entry by Edward Smith, captain of the Titanic, rhapsodizing over the lovely weather and smooth sailing that came before the unfortunate incident with the iceberg.

閱讀格蘭特在申請過程中所寫的那些充滿激情的文章，就像在讀泰坦尼克號船長愛德華o史密斯的日記。前面還在感情飽滿地描繪美好的天氣和平穩的航行，突然船便撞上了冰山。

After his interview with Tuck—when he had applied there and at the four other schools—he came to a conclusion while driving home from Hanover, N.H.: “I have fallen in love with Tuck again,” he writes. “I was scared this was going to happen again. The first time I applied, I KNEW that Tuck was the place for me… And here we are again.”

參加完塔克商學院的面試之後，他在開車回新罕布什爾州漢諾威的時候，得出一個結論：“我再次愛上了塔克。這讓我有些害怕。在第一次申請的時候，我就知道我屬於這裏……今天我們再次重逢。”這一次，他還申請了另外四所商學院。

Then Kellogg usurped Tuck, after Grant visited the school in Evanston, Ill., and had his interview.

然後，格蘭特前往伊利諾伊州埃文斯頓，對凱洛格商學院進行了考察，並參加了該學院的面試，這一次，凱洛格奪走了塔克商學院在格蘭特心中的位置。

“Kellogg is amazing and totally synonymous with who I am and where I want to end up in my career,” Grant gushes, going on to use the word “amazing” three more times in his post about his visit and interview.

格蘭特對凱洛格讚不絕口：“凱洛格太令人驚豔了，這裏正是最適合我的地方，我希望在這裏工作一輩子。”他在這篇關於此次考察和麪試的博客中，又用了三次“令人驚豔”。

Add in the two “fantastics” he used, and you know that when that Kellogg ding came, it stung. But it turned out to be less painful than the one from Tuck. After all, he’d made the wait list when he’d applied there the year before, and a school official had later told him they hadn’t let in anyone from the list. For his second chance at Tuck, Grant felt he was an even better candidate. And the school had become his last hope.

此外，他還用了兩個“奇妙”，所以你能想象他在收到凱洛格的拒絕之後會多麼心痛。不過，事實證明，塔克商學院帶給他的痛苦更加強烈。畢竟，前一年他還曾進入過候選名單，後來有一位學校官員曾告訴他，候選榜單中沒有任何人被錄取。所以，第二次申請塔克商學院的時候，格蘭特感覺自己應該是條件更好的候選者。而且，塔克也是他最後的希望。

Harvard had been the first to turn him away, without an interview, but that didn’t concern Grant too much. “It’s Harvard Business School, the best business school in the world—denied, big deal.”

哈佛商學院最先拒絕了他的申請，沒有提供面試，但格蘭特對此不太擔心。“那可是哈佛商學院，全世界最好的商學院——拒絕，沒什麼大不了。”

“When I didn’t get an interview at HBS, I was not surprised. When I didn’t get an interview at Wharton, I was a little scared.”

“沒有得到哈佛商學院的面試機會，我並不意外。但後來沃頓商學院也沒有提供面試機會，這讓我有些擔心。”

Running on empty

徒勞無功

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.

每收到一次拒絕，他都會因爲自己在準備GMAT和申請學校過程中所犯的錯誤而深深自責。

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.

他曾決定取得比第一次710分更高的GMAT分數。他在博客中寫道他“很有可能再次參加考試，目標是750分左右。”但在爲第二次考試努力學習的時候，他卻遇到了阻礙。

“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.

他說道：“我被升職了，我得到了一份額外的領導職務。我獲得了領導一個特別項目的機會。我開始寫博客。我在公益事業上投入了太多精力。”

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.

格蘭特每天早上4:30起牀，5點開始學習，學習一兩個小時之後去上班，然後去做公益。每天晚上，他會從8點開始學習兩個小時。週末如果沒有志願者工作，他便選擇加班。

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

“我每天睡四個小時，持續了六個月時間。”

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.

他在八週時間裏，總共投入了150個小時準備GMAT考試。他說道：“學習的質量並不高。我的腦子要思考無數個問題，GMAT只是其中之一。”他不僅“身心俱疲”，而且根本沒有達到200個小時的目標，甚至與第一次準備GMAT的190個小時也相去甚遠。

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.”

他第一次準備塔克商學院的申請和麪試共用了50個小時，而第二次五所學校的準備時間總共也沒有那麼多。他說道：“這太令人尷尬了。我以爲我會用60個小時。或許吧。這已經是我的極限。可能會更少，可能在40個小時左右。真是太糟糕了。”然後他低聲抱怨道：“真該死！”

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

他聘請了一位顧問，但並沒有進行任何信息性面試練習。他考察了除耶魯之外的所有學校。

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.

在沒有收到哈佛和沃頓的面試機會之後，耶魯也拒絕了他的申請。格蘭特說：“我想：‘天哪，我今年可能沒機會進商學院了。’”

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.’”

拒絕依次到來，他也變得越來越擔憂。“被凱洛格拒絕之後，我想到：‘我真的有麻煩了。’”

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.”

與此同時，格蘭特的職業也在發生變化。他打算放棄在航空航天領域的工作。公司計劃裁員，而剩下的人將面臨額外的工作負擔。“我開始兩邊下注。我在尋找其他機會。”

Swimming in a sea of self doubt

沉浸於自我懷疑

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?

連續被商學院拒絕，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？我自己有能力做什麼事情嗎？”

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

“所以，找另外一份工作便顯得非常重要。”

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

凱洛格商學院拒絕他的申請時，他已經參加了洛杉磯一家娛樂公司的電話面試。

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.”

格蘭特不會放棄自己的MBA夢想。他還會申請前10大商學院，不過可能只從中選擇三至四所學校，並且不會申請哈佛商學院。他計劃爲自己將申請的每一所學校拿出30個小時準備時間，GMAT考試的學習時間目標爲300個小時。格蘭特說道：“我真的希望能得到760分。這個分數將很有幫助。”

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.

格蘭特表示自己之所以寫博客，是因爲他想幫助同樣在申請MBA的其他人。這也符合他對公益事業和志願者工作的興趣。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。”

“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.”

“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，’然後，我摔了一跤。”

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.”

在他的博客裏，火星風景照片的下方是他對被五次拒絕的反思。格蘭特對讀者們寫道：“我感覺我讓大家失望了。在衆目睽睽之下遭遇失敗，並且承認失敗，這簡直太難了。我非常抱歉。”

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.

不過，格蘭特已經做好了再次嘗試進入頂級商學院的準備，尤其是塔克和凱洛格。這兩所商學院已經給過他足夠高的評價，並且提供了面試機會。在航空航天行業從事財務工作的經歷，讓他很受招生委員會的喜愛，而且他的新工作也令人印象深刻。他已經從前兩次嘗試所犯的錯誤中學到了許多，如果他能將這些經驗教訓付諸實施，他肯定能在申請和麪試時給學校留下更好的印象。更高的GMAT分數也將給他額外加分。

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.”

他說道，事實上，荒涼的火星並不意味着這是一片靈魂的荒原，而是代表了一個新的前沿。他說道：“那是一個全新的世界。”（財富中文網）