I can relate and I was actually doing the same thing about 9years ago. I was more lucky as I had a job in biotech and wanted to go back to grad school but got rejection after rejection. I was so frustrated that I took anything (Bad PhD lab not the topic I wanted etc) and ended up hating grad school. Left it - for good. Studied another topic (tech) went down a different career path. Today I am more than happy and get chased weekly by headhunters.

My take away: It is a journey. Don’t be affraid to push for what you believe in and I can say that as I applied to more than 500jobs in the last 10 years… But I am now down to narrowing a handful applications with nearly 80-90percent success rate (Sr Manager and Director level positions).