????一次不幸的失誤會(huì)產(chǎn)生連鎖反應(yīng)

????對(duì)于一個(gè)身高1米55、體重175磅,、喜歡奧運(yùn)會(huì)舉重項(xiàng)目和超級(jí)英雄電影的27歲男性來說，沒有被頂尖商學(xué)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(cái)務(wù)工作,，目前正在搬家和換工作——從東海岸一家位列《財(cái)富》50強(qiáng)的航空航天公司，搬往洛杉磯,，即將加入一家排名接近《財(cái)富》50強(qiáng)的娛樂公司,。

????在被五次拒絕之前，他還曾遭遇過一次不太嚴(yán)重的打擊,。一年前,，格蘭特只申請(qǐng)了達(dá)特茅茨學(xué)院塔克商學(xué)院，但未被錄取,。不過至少那一次他進(jìn)入了候選名單,。

????這是格蘭特遭遇慘敗的另外一個(gè)原因。

????2013年10月申請(qǐng)塔克商學(xué)院之后,，從12月進(jìn)入候選名單到第二年8月被拒絕,，格蘭特如同著魔一般，一直擔(dān)心自己能否被錄取,，對(duì)成功的幾率進(jìn)行了各種計(jì)算,。之前一年，有一位朋友的GMAT分?jǐn)?shù)更低,，但被塔克商學(xué)院錄取,，這讓格蘭特燃起了希望，結(jié)果希望變成了泡影,。

????他回憶說：“我大概是有些不正常了,。我就像個(gè)癮君子一樣。不停地去查看論壇，計(jì)算成功的概率,?！?/p>

????于是，第二次,，他申請(qǐng)了哈佛,、沃頓、耶魯,、凱洛格和塔克,。這一次，他不會(huì)再犯同樣的錯(cuò)誤,，不想因?yàn)樘P(guān)注被錄取的機(jī)會(huì)而讓自己變得神經(jīng)質(zhì),。

????但是，他卻犯了一個(gè)更大的錯(cuò)誤,。之前一年,，在焦急等待塔克商學(xué)院的回復(fù)時(shí)，他還能保持勤奮：他在面試之后與面試官保持聯(lián)系,，每個(gè)月發(fā)一封電子郵件——證明自己強(qiáng)烈的興趣和毅力,，讓對(duì)方注意到他的存在。這一次在參加凱洛格和塔克的面試之后,，他本應(yīng)該繼續(xù)這樣做,，但他說，這一次他卻在盡量避免像上次一樣,，因?yàn)樗辉冈贋檫@種等待的游戲去消耗自己了,。

????他說道：“今年我沒有在面試之后跟進(jìn)。我沒有給面試官發(fā)郵件,。我真是太蠢了,。我太懶惰。我一次次推遲,。真蠢,。”

????并非因?yàn)槿狈崆?/strong>

????One unfortunate fumble leads to another, and another

????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.

????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.

????And that’s another reason why Grant went splat.

????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.

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

????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.

????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.

????“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.”

????Not for lack of enthusiasm

????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.

????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.”

????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.”

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

????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.

????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.

????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.”

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

????“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.

????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.

????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.”

????“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.”