If we go by last year, Ohio & Bama are both late (for Fiction).
Interesting as well is that Ohio for the last three years sent out notifications for all three genres at the same time. This is the firs time they notified a poet without alerting CNF and F as well.
Has anyone but Emily heard from UBC? (Or applied there?) It's brutal not hearing from a school that has sent out acceptances! I know I'm stating the obvious here, but i'm starting to feel crazy!
So yes, Monday can't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned. I'll be on vacation for three days in LA later in the week. So I don't want to hear any bad news then!! =)
As a native Midwesterner, I have a couple comments about location.
1. People in the Midwest love to hunt. Love it. Don't be surprised by deer heads 'round these parts. Hunting comes up in my poetry a lot, even though I don't do it myself.
2. Not all places that fit some of the stereotypes of what people think of the Midwest are necessarily unfriendly. I agree with many of you who have said that it's good to be out of your comfort zone for a while. I don't think anyone should feel unsafe, at least not in any of the places I've been in the Midwest.
3. As a liberal hipster (for lack of a better word) and non-drinking Christian square, I never feel like I fit in anywhere. Isn't that what it's supposed to be like? I mean, I somewhat assumed that most people true to themselves didn't really fit into one particular subgroup. I'm assuming that no matter where I live (so far, it's been East Coast and Midwest), at least one aspect of my personality will find some kindred.
No doubt, this is the sort of thing I was wondering about. Because my understanding is that there is the coastal south and then the South. Like, the difference between where I grew up, in Bluffton, SC (an artsy little eccentric town) and upstate, inland SC places like Greenville / Spartanburg area. I'm again hoping that places with a serious college / university are going to be a little more like the coastal areas: artsy, eccentric, tolerant, etc. But I am not a church-goer, either, so we'll see. The line I usually use about stuff like that is, my mother was Catholic, my father was Presbyterian, so we were raised neutral, like Switzerland. That meant occasionally visiting the Episcopalian church on Easter. We'll see.
Not to douse anyone's hopes, but I can confirm OSU sent out notifications of acceptance across all three genres on Friday. I believe that there is a wait list, but I don't think the adcoms notify wait listers until later.
Just curious--I didn't apply to Ohio State--how did you find that out? I have a friend who applied there, and wouldn't want to pass along that notice without having the facts.
I looooooove Bluffton!! And Hilton Head, of course. Why can't there be a good MFA program there?? Or Savannah. Speaking of which, does anybody know anything about SCAD's MFA in "Writing"??
Anyone have any advice on what to do when an entire online application system is down? That's the case with Southern Illinois - Carbondale right now. And tomorrow's the deadline!
I emailed the English Department and their webmaster asking what's up. (Plus, I mailed my manuscript and the paper parts of the app weeks ago.)
@Adam, I'd definitely call. It might be that no one is in today, but you can try first thing in the morning. Also, if you're very worried about it, you might fill out a paper application (most schools have paper application options, even if they prefer online apps) and mail it in with a check for the fee tomorrow, as most deadlines are postmark rather than receipt deadlines.
That said, I haven't checked out this particular school, so the above might or might not apply.
At the risk of sounding like a dissident, what do you find appealing about Savannah? Are you from Georgia? (I live 45 minutes from savannah and have my entire life).
Funny thing. This happened with the Illinois, Urbana-Champaign online app too. It was due on 11/17 at 12 noon, but someone messed up the settings so that the system actually shut down on midnight, between 11/16-11/17, thus cutting off 12 hours of submitting time!
I panicked when I tried to submit it at 1 AM, the morning of 11/17 and it wouldn't let me. But then I figured that I hadn't messed up, and that programs are very reasonable. I went to bed, slept well, woke up early and called the program. The office assistant was very understanding and said that the English dept. decided to give everyone another DAY to submit their online apps.
I bet you'll end up with the same situation. Just get up early, call, explain the situation. Good luck!
You should call. I had a problem with the website and it took them 7 days to reply by email. It wasn't down to the wire, so I wasn't stressing about.
Also, I got an email from the graduate program asking me to submit my application (even though I already had) and they cleared it up within a day. They were also really nice about it.
I love the architecture, the food, the history (I actually went on a ghost tour there, which I know seems kind of lame, but I loved it! It was totally hokey, but so much fun and I loved learning about the history, especially the yellow fever stuff). I think the marshes in that whole area are really cool, although a little stinky at times. And there are two great beaches and beach towns nearby, like Hilton Head and Tybee Island.
I could be speaking out of my ass here, but it felt more "mainstream" there as opposed to other areas of the South, mainly because of the tourist element. It seemed a little more traditional, artsy, funky, etc... I liked it :)
I didn't apply to Ohio State either, but Tory's comment made me feel a little hopeless about the whole process for some reason. I just can't believe that we (including the people on TSE and P&W boards) haven't heard anything except for one poetry acceptance. I'm most definitely not accusing Tory of making this up, but I'm not sure what to think of it if it's true. More applicants? So many applicants spread out that it's a rarity to have someone post it online??
There is the unnerving possibility that all those who received notifications on Friday proceeded to go on celebratory weekend-long benders, thus rendering them unable or unmotivated to spread the news online.
RE: location, S/N, and being queer or marginalized in any other way - I agree with burlaper that to a large extent, no matter where we live, we'll feel that social edge. Some of us have to be cautious - and no matter how cautious, could encounter some blunt discrimination (queers are beaten to death in liberal progressive cities, too.) Being part of a writing community, I think, will help buffer that experience, wherever any of us end up. That being said, I do not consider Laramie, Wyoming a viable option for me. Nowayz, nunca, nada, ain't goin' there!
So what's my point? I'm not sure. I guess that this conversation is important, and that there is no clear answer is also important. But the issue is not so much south or north or anywhere else - it's society and how the marginalized cope. (I refer to Shakespeare's Othello to remind me this is nothing new, ie. society has less forgiveness for the marginalized to "break" a rule.) I don't know who said that writers are the witnesses for society, and as such, we tend to be watching from the outside, but isn't it so? It seems to me, yes. (I acknowledge in advance that there are fellow writers who don't share that view or see it as their role. No problem. There's room here for all of us. I feel, in some ways, forced into that role, just by the nature of where I stand in and out of community.)
For anyone else having trouble with SIUC, I found a solution!
After some fishing around, I got out of SIU's Carbondale site and went to their "system" page that covers all of the branches. From there, I went to their admissions page, which has a Carbondale link that works! Huzzah!
http://admissions.siuc.edu/applynow.html
Jeez, for all this, I should get an MFA in Detective Work. (Which, if it existed, I would toooootally do.)
@Hannah Minnesota has an announcement on their website that they won't be notifying applicants until mid-March. Record number of applicants, I believe it was 443 for 13 spots.
@kaybay: You know, I'm so ambivalent about that response. I love positive comments about the place I grew up, but I'll be honest with you-- that place doesn't exist anymore. With all the annexations, migrations and marketeering, Bluffton is now like the Disney Epcot version of the town I knew. I know this is / was happening all over the south before the recession... Development and Devil have a lot in common for the verbally oriented. Hilton Head has always been like that, though... I mean, always. Before the War it was a summer residence for out-of-towners. :) I don't know, some places are hard to be from, because you're outnumbered by those who aren't... if that makes sense.
I'm actually in Savannah this weekend, though I'm staying Midtown, not downtown... Ate at Lady & Sons last night, which was decadent and delightful. My mother, who's an oil painter, went to SCAD, and I entertain delightful fantasies where I not only get into Ole Miss' MFA program, but I then finish the MFA and get some teaching job at SCAD that allows me to take free classes... bwahaha. This is my nefarious plot to pick up, gratis, courses in Equestrian Studies, Photography, Historic Preservation (like, hands-on restoration of buildings in Savannah, how awesome is that) and Dramatic Writing!
I applied to a school in a part of the country with a reputation for being extremely conservative. I applied because it's a great program. However, I have mixed feelings about the location. I think I would be really irritated by people who think that unless I go to church I don't have any spiritual life and, therefore, am not to be trusted. It's one thing to see that kind of limited thinking covered by the news and be able to change the channel, but to actually live among folks who think that way would probably be hard for me. I mean, the bottom line is that it's none of their business. Certain areas of the country do seem to breed more of an odd sense of judgment entitlement in regard to other people's lives. And at the same time, I know that wonderful people live everywhere too. I wouldn't have applied if I didn't think I could adjust. Mostly, I just want to hear something from one of my schools!
Katie-Jane: that's probably the most interesting part of the South as a whole. Land is cheap and taxes are low, so businesses are rolling in (the Kia Plant in West Point, GA is a perfect example). This brings in new condos and new houses and new people, with new religions, accents, and lifestyles. The South is in transition. Some people are struggling with that and seek to retain some semblance of tradition and "home," something they are absolutely entitled to. Others are capitalizing on the transition and loving it. I have noticed, as a positive, that once marginalized groups, particularly African Americans, are enjoying the change because they can own and develop businesses and cultivate a lifestyle that they could not have had several decades ago (particularly in Atlanta. Regardless, many Southerners are learning how to deal with change and the loss of identity.
This is why Flannery O'Connor is one of my favorite writers. She wrote about this subject a lot (so did Faulkner a little bit), and I find it really interesting.
I know what you mean though. I was born in raised in a more white collar part of the Bay Area. I hadn't been there in about two years, went back last November, and realized that all of the old shopping centers that I would hang out in after school had been torn down and completely yuppified. I absolutely hated it. The town I grew up in is completely gone :(
@Lauren - Ugh. I didn't apply there but totally feel for you. When I read Tory's comment I was like damn damn damn damn why couldn't the people that got in be from this site?!?
You know, though, that most schools don't finalize their students for quite some time. If they liked your sample, there's still a good shot you could get in.
Isn't it funny how surprised we are that OSU notified across all three genres and WE didn't hear about it? When I read that comment I was like, "Doh!" (I did apply to OSU.) And then I was like, "How is that possible? We didn't even hear anything!" So, I guess we know now that there are applicants who either aren't in the MFA blog loop or that they aren't posting if they are. I'm in a delirious state of semi-denial, saying to myself, "Oh cool, now it won't be so hard for me to make my final choice between all the other places that will accept me! Awesome!" But really, it isn't over totally until you receive the rejection in the mail. Let's keep hope alive!
So, I was thinking that my phone was broken all yesterday. I kept checking the signal strength and battery because Indiana tends to notify on the last Saturday in January.
But it looks like the abused and maligned gadget might be working just fine. I'm not seeing that they called anyone else, either.
And so the waiting continues. I've realized that waiting at the MVD is much preferable to this.
I LOVE things like ghost tours. I always check to see if a city has one. San Francisco also has a pretty good Vampire tour which is even more cheesy. I actually went on a date on a ghost tour and we both covered ourselves with a sheet the entire time (as in a siamese ghost) - the tour guide loved us. Smoking was a bit difficult through the small holes we cut out for the eyes though.
Sorry, that should say "I was born and raised in a more BLUE collar part of the SAN FRANSISCO Bay Area." I got confused there with the colored collars....
But here's the thing -- we don't know. Until a rejection letter is in your hands, you don't know. What if there is an unofficial wait list and they are going to do a second round of notifications? Sometimes people get acceptances in late March or even April.
Didn't Tory say that they "sent out notifications" on Friday? Doesn't that open things up to the possibility of snail mail? That's just what I inferred from his comment. Maybe everyone isn't notified in the same way, so those of you who applied there shouldn't give up hope just yet!
Recent Lurker or one of the Others here, checking in. Thanks for all the information and the shared insanity. It's good to know I'm not the only crazy one.
I was looking at the last few blogs to see if any of you had mentioned this, but no luck so forgive me if I'm bringing up something you guys already beat to death.
Regarding fake-out emails, I don't know how many of you applied to ASU, but did anyone else find the ASU Asurite emails/process to be both hilarious and sadistic?
A couple Fridays back I submitted my electronic app some minutes before the midnight deadline. The following afternoon, I get an email from ASU with the subject "Welcome to Arizona State University." Now I'm thinking either there is a God or the Graduate Admissions people had a few cocktails late Friday night and agreed to send out a mass email with an ambiguous subject line, just to "mess with 'em."
I open the email and it's like "Welcome to Arizona State University web-based services." They couldn't have put "web-based services" in the subject line?
Now you log onto this site, and it's the same one you would use to register classes, create your student profile, etc. You can even create an asu.edu email address (which of course I did, immediately). I even tried to register for classes, thinking maybe this is some beautiful glitch and if I just register for classes, once they realize it they won't be able to reject me. That didn't work.
But the email does. Why give us an asu.edu email address before the program we've applied to has even had time to read our sample? It's like ASU is telling us, "get comfortable in there, play around a little, add some contacts, send some emails - why the heck not - until mid-March when we forever strip you of the precious asu.edu domain and crush your hopes and dreams while embarassing you with friends and family." (deep evil laughter)
I'm just going to stay logged in to my ASU email, so they can't take it back. Because that's how technology works.
Daniel, if you want to further extend your ASU fantasy, you could establish a facebook account w/ that email and start friending all your new classmates.
I found the ASU application process to be pretty smooth, but I don't think the program really knew what was up with the online application process. First they tell me I can submit recommendations online and then they tell me I should send them via mail. Same thing for the teaching assistantship application. I call the Graduate office and they tell me that departments handle supporting materials and then I call the department and they tell me to call the graduate office. *shrugs* At least everything got in okay.
@ Lauren. I'm with Frankish. Just because you weren't in the first batch doesn't mean you aren't still in the running. I think we all have to remember that, week by week, notification by notification. There will be several applicants who are accepted to multiple programs, but they can only attend ONE. As we all keep repeating, until there's a rejection letter in hand, there's hope.
Hi everyone, I've been reading this blog and all of your comments for the past month, and I finally decided to say hi! I applied to 17 fiction programs and am completely stressed/freaking out about acceptances. Here is my list of schools:
Michigan Wisconsin Indiana Minnesota Iowa Oregon State Colorado Western Michigan Ohio University (M.A., not MFA) Vanderbilt Alabama Florida NYU George Mason BU Penn State Bowling Green
I'm honestly just praying I get into ONE school. Any of them. No one has heard anything about fiction acceptences from any of these schools....right?
Michener Iowa Michigan Wisconsin Miami (FL) Montana NYU Washington U. (St Louis) UNC Wilmington Umass-Amherst Minnesota (still haven't heard anything from them about whether my application is even complete) UC-Boulder (ditto) Syracuse (ditto) Cornell (got an email long ago saying they would let me know if anything was missing ... no contact since) George Mason (just found an email in my spambox – from almost a month ago! - saying they're missing a transcript. cue chest pain.)
@Xataro and Daniel You both have given me a great chuckle. Thanks. Yeah, right, waiting it out at the MVD! And GotBisco suggesting opening up a Facebook account with that temporary ASU e-mail account. Invite the MFA faculty to be your facebook friend. (No, don't. I was only kidding.)
Are we getting punchy for this new week of potential calls? No matter what happens, DO NOT THROW YOUR PHONE ACROSS THE ROOM!
And, with so many people with multiple apps (in the teens), and little incentive to make their choice earlier than April 15, if they have one, some of us could be waiting 'til April (or May?) to know anything.
I am indeed the Tory who goes to OSU, lol. Accept no substitutes.
I received an email yesterday (Saturday) from one of the fiction profs saying she and one of the poetry profs were about to email the all ready accepted students to invite them to join our Facebook group and email us current students to learn more about the program. That's more or less how I know.
Now we usually offer 8 spots each in fiction and poetry, expecting to take 6 each. There are usually 4 people per genre on the waitlist. I think Nick, who was waitlisted last year (and got in this year w00t!), was notified in March that he had been waitlisted. We take 3 nonfiction people every year, and I know last year they did go to the waitlist after 1 of the 3 declined their offer. No idea how long the CNF waitlist is or when he was notified though.
As others have said here, it ain't over till you get a definitive rejection letter. Keep your spirits up...it's still ridiculously early in the game!!!
I've been lurking for the last few days (as well as going through the comment threads around this time last year, to see when people got in to various places), and thought I'd FINALLY say hi. Going berserk is so much more fun if you can do it in good company, right?
My list (I applied for fiction):
Wisconsin Michigan Iowa Cornell Brown Michener U of Oregon Pittsburgh Portland State
@Cate: I really REALLY hope Wisconsin lets applicants know this week, and I think it's at least reasonable to hope so, since I got an email from them saying we'd know by feb. 14th or something like that (I'm sure you did, too). Fingers crossed!
OK. So I've acknowledged here before that I am way slow at joining internet social networking groups. You've all been so good to me. (-: Do I have to do this Facebook thang? I mean, OSU notifies applicants and invites them to join in on Facebook? I'm thinkin' this is one more obstacle I just need to ignore (as in, just join Facebook, will ya?) It just gives me the heebyjeebies to be out there - it's such a big world, with people watching me while sitting in their basements with a single light bulb and a dripping faucet. I'm being way too paranoid, right? Does anyone out there share this trepidation?
I just checked wisconsin's site and it says i'm missing one of my rec letters. I saw a while back that a few other people were notified that they were missing stuff. Why didn't I get a notification?? Crap.
I don't do Facebook. I don't want to be on Facebook. I suppose at some point I will succumb and join. If an MFA program wanted to add me as friend I think that would motivate me to join. For now, I resist.
Re: osu, my guess is that they've only called people who live abroad. Nick lives abroad, and so does one other person I know who got accepted (for poetry). So my guess is that everyone else will find out this week.
@ Brandi Wells, that makes me (continue to) question whether that WI email meant the status page would be up to date, as opposed to actual offers being made. If they have more applications by a third, do we really think they could notify in less than two weeks when--historically--they've notified at the very end of February?
I agree that it seems strange that they'd be able to be so prompt with the response, but I think that's very clearly what the email suggests. This quote, directly preceding the "if you don't know by Feb. 12th" statement, seems clear:
"You are no doubt anxious to have some word about your application status. We hope to convey this information to you and the other applicants in the very near future. In the meantime, we do ask for your patience. You will be hearing from us."
In particular, "We hope to convey this information to you" referencing "your application status."
I myself did not apply to UNLV, but have a good poet-friend who applied there (and five other places, to my chagrin. I urged her for more to no avail) and talks about it like it's Eden. She's one of those infamous not-interested-in-MFA-blog people; not even a lurker... I think at this point she just doesn't want to freak herself out.
From her I hear it's a very tasty program. International focus and what-not.
I anticipate that the MFA mini-universe is about to explode into an entire cottage industry. I bet dozens of new websites, maybe even software for kids to put together their applications...these bumps in applicants are just huge.
@ sh . . . I think you're probably right. Especially since it came from the English Department and not "Graduate Admissions."
I think I'm hovering--not blissfully, mind you, not even close--in that hopeful place, that "application pending" place. For all the ulcer and stroke inducing joy of waiting, I'd hate to look back on this pre-notification period as the good 'ol days.
Well, I can cross Vandy off my list of potentials...
Seriously though, with those odds, even good writing will be rejected. I wonder how *anyone* gets accepted. How do you sift through hundreds, sometimes thousands of samples, and find a single one that shouts at every member of the committee?
I know that it's early to be admitting this, but I feel deep down in my heart that I will be rejected every where this year. The odds are just too high and I'm still progressing as a writer. I'm comfortable with next year, but this sucks!
@Kerry Thanks for the input. I know lots of people who don't and heels-in-the-ground-won't do Facebook. I agree, though, that if invited by an mfa program, I'm joining! (-;
If I don't get accepted, I'll be jumping outta that Schrödinger's Cat box and workin' on next year. It'll be the night of the living dead cat around here.
@kaybay nonononononono...no...no...no. "I'm still progressing as a writer" means that you are MFA material. If you weren't progressing, who would want to be in the same room with you??? jeez! Now, just stop that! Now. OK?
So, obviously they have to look at more than the writing sample. If our writing sample absolutely sucks, forget it. But if it's decent with room for improvement, and something that peaks the curiosity of a committee member, someone who loves that very thing that you or I are struggling with, well, that could be the ticket. They do not want to work with perfect people! I just know that in my bones. Don't you, miss fried okra???? lol
I meant to also say that they must look at the rest of the packet, don't you think? They want to know who we are and whether they feel like they can hang with us for the next two to three years, and whether they feel comfortable sharing the name of their institution with us. So, every part of our app packet is important. That's what I think, anyway.
Well, I don't miss fried okra that much. It would be fun to be in workshop with you, but I don't think we crossed over on any schools. I only applied to three UMich, UMinn, UWisc (alphabetical, I can't rank them.)
@Farrah - I agree something seems fishy. Why would they notify before Feb. 12th? If anything it should be later this year, right? That means after Feb. 23! And yet...
Maybe they just wanted to get it over with earlier this year. Maybe a committee member(s) had something else planned for the end of Feb.
My head says - it is just too early. My heart says- it will be this week or next.
@Frankish, Yes, let’s all go into torpor and wake up in March!
@kaybay - "I know that it's early to be admitting this, but I feel deep down in my heart that I will be rejected every where this year. The odds are just too high"
I would love to workshop with you too! But alas, I didn't apply to any of those schools. I wish I applied to Michigan, but my brother did a year of undergrad there before transferring to Michigan State and hated UM. I had that in the back of my head as I crossed it off my list. But what does he know anyway??
By the way, I'm going to go play the lottery, swim in the ocean, and stand outside in a lightning storm, because I'm pretty sure I have a better chance winning a jackpot, getting eaten by a shark, and getting hit by lightening than getting into a writing program. Phoooey! I kid, I kid...
In attempts to shift away from anxiety (ha! yeah right), I have a question. With all of the N/S discussion going on, is there anyone out there with some West coast love similar to mine? I'm from Arizona and now live in Washington. Everything's just cool up here, man. (Sorry, I'm just trying to convey the hippie love that exists up here in the PNW.) I'm excited at the prospect of new surroundings though (never even been to the Midwest!), particularly Virginia (Hollins is one of my top picks). Anyway, just thought I would speak up on behalf of those with little to no knowledge about N/S living who tend to reside in the West. Anybody out there?
If my friend told me that it's better to dream recklessly rather than get stuck in reality, I'd slap them and tell them to wake the fuck up.
No, I'm kidding. I think many of us are dreamers by nature, so we give ourselves frequent reality checks to stay grounded. The higher you get, the harder the fall. Many of us are the walking wounded when it comes to dreams.
finally finished all my apps a few weeks ago and haven't been back here in a while. for what it's worth, this was where i ended up applying (in fiction):
florida new mexico american george mason iowa alabama virginia (uva) hollins
Keep in mind it's not REALLY free. You still have to pay for transcripts and GRE scores and mailing the manuscript.
re: Wisconsin
Another thing to keep in mind is that AWP was around this time last year, so that would have delayed the process. Maybe they're quicker this year with no interference from pesky writer's conferences.
I'm still holding on to the notion that these numbers do not mean anything to any of us as individuals. If they liked our work with 300 applicants or 1000, they like our work. Sure, it's true that the numbers mean we are competing against more people, but we haven't read their work or seen their SOP's or LOR's. What these numbers really mean is that the programs are inundated with bookoo amounts of stuff to read.
They're capturing more applications, but especially with the fully funded programs, but any offering of funding is enticing people to apply. The programs probably have a good radar on who's really committed.
Statistics and probabilities about groups apply to groups, not individuals. I really think that's important to keep in mind, This data is helpful and informing, but I see folks psyching themselves out with numbers. None of us will know until we get word specifically. Remember those numbers also include increasing numbers that each individual is applying to. I think Seth said that yes, there is a projected increase in the number of applicants overall. I don't remember his projected total, but it's not as much as these numbers imply.
Applying to a large number of programs helps your chances statistically of going somewhere next Fall.
I didn't know they required GRE scores, so that would have played a role in my costs. Beyond that, however, it would have been practically free.
Initially I wanted to apply to 12 schools instead of ten, but I cut it down to 10 because of the costs. I think I would have applied to Vandy if I had been thinking properly back then. Perhaps I was looking for an excuse to end the hellish application process as soon as possible and didn't want to keep looking for more places to apply.
@DigAPony Virginia is South, not Midwest. They'll definitely want you to know that. (This is not a slap at the south, just stating the facts. Virginia is a southern state and many there would take offense to being considered Midwest. Not a slap at Midwest either.)
Sam, you can still apply to McNeese State (at the risk of creating more competition for me ;) ). It is completely and totally free in the beginning. Just email a letter stating why you would want to go there and your writing sample to the program director. Easy as pie.
@kaybay well, if you swim with sharks or buy a lottery ticket or stand in a lightening storm, yes, but if all you did of the four was apply to mfa programs, then I'd say, you have a better chance of getting into an mfa program. (;
@Sam - Your comment made me laugh, because (at the time) I kind of wanted to reach out and slap her through the phone. However, I think she does have a point about positive thinking and remaining optimistic. No point in acting defeated until I’m actually defeated. Plus, it just sounds nice...like fortune cookie wisdom. =)
I think that Vanderbilt's free application just means that they got three hundred horrible stories about vampires or car crashes. Or vampires waking up to their alarm clocks to go get in car crashes. I bet the free application is positively a lighting rod for crap.
The numbers are definitely incredibly grim, but I have to agree with those of you who have been saying that a big part of it must be that the average applicant is casting a much wider net. There's just no precedent for an increase in overall applicants that would account for the majority of the increases in applications received at a given school.
I do think this is going to make for a very emotional and potentially heartbreaking admissions season. As one previous poster noted, there's very little incentive for anyone who's been accepted to multiple programs to make a decision before April 15th. For that reason I think we're going to see a lot of people exit their notification period without much hope, only to come out with a bump-in off a waitlist that could come as far down the road as May.
If current trends continue, I think MFA admissions folk are going to have do something to streamline the stuff that takes place between the offer of admission and the admitted student's final decision. Because as things stand it's not set up to make drawing people off of the waitlist painless or easy.
I hope that if any of us are lucky enough to get into multiple programs we can be diligent about picking one and declining the others for the benefit of those still waiting.
I agree with what you're saying. Most of the talk I do on this board is just off-the-cuff madness without any filter. Being a fairly reasonable person, I know that I'm not going to die or quit writing or become overly depressed if things don't work out. The numbers, our chances, etc, don't really mean much. We're going to keep writing regardless as long as it's important to us.
However, in this little crazy MFA waiting world, there is some significance to the increased numbers. The more samples they have to read, the less value each sample has. You can pick up an anthology of the best short stories ever written, and if you don't feel like reading them, you probably won't like most of them. More samples also means less reads and less time with each sample. It can also mean more readers which increases variance. Essentially, having more samples increases the variables and that makes "luck" a greater factor. I know that if I get into a school this year, especially after having done swaps with the fine writers on this board, I will know that it was more about being lucky than it was about being good. Obviously you have to be good, but there are lots of good writers and not very many spots.
But hey, outside of this little bubble we've created, it's just MFAs. We want them, but we don't necessarily need them. It's just fun to vent about our chances. :)
There are good writers and then there are good writers. A couple of my mentors, very established and successful authors, come to mind. They were writing at an astronomical level when they applied to MFAs. These are the kind of people who I know will come out on top 10 times out of 10 if their stories are read next to mine.
If I thought there were enough of them out there to fill every good MFA program, I wouldn't have bothered applying at all. I don't think there are, and that's why I personally believe in my chances. But the reality is that I can't possibly gauge the average quality of an MFA applicant's sample, nor can I know how much attention each sample gets and how the increase in applications might affect that, without having sat on an MFA admissions committee myself.
My guess would be that they would probably start with the SOP's, perhaps even before the sample itself. If there are too many applications to read, and it gets dull/ exhausting, and a lot of them are good writers anyway, then perhaps here is when the SOP comes in effective. What more is to that person than technique? And if you have an interesting SOP, it helps. So...just a wild random guess here. I personally think it would make sense. Right??
I like to hope that people will be rejecting offers as quickly as they honestly can. If someone has three acceptances and they are able to cross one off, I'm hoping they would notify that school as early as they are able. For example, if you get into UT - hey, tell the other schools right away!
The more that I look at these numbers the more I see the overlap. We have a chance this year, really! It's there.
It feels like ages ago when we were discussing books made into movies. Now the distraction conversation seems to have died, but I need it more than ever! I recently saw Up in the Air and I loved it. Has anybody read the book? It is worth reading, or is it a mess?
I think it totally depends on the school. Some will value the SOP more than others. And in the case that they're bothering to read your SOP based on the strength of your sample, it definitely will be a get-to-know-you kind of thing.
Although we don't like to think about this, other information available to the department does come into play.
GREs/GPAs, I think, are very unlikely to figure into decisions at the departmental level. Not as much as SOPs, at least.
But what about recommendations? I think that in a close race, the writer with the stronger recommendations has a huge leg-up. Especially if those recommendations are written by authoritative figures who have attested in detail to your ability to contribute to an MFA program.
Yeah, I remember reading an interview where an MFA director said that the MFA degree is a way of being unemployed and unemployable while the PHD was a way of being decently poor. Perhaps I'll have to broker deals with multiple deities.
I just did the math in my head for Vandy. Assuming 320 or so of those applicants are for fiction (a safe assumption), their acceptance rate for fiction this year is going to be just under 9/10 of a percent or so, right?
We've talked about the importance (or lack of) placed on grades, GRE scores, recommendations, SOP, and the writing sample. How much does “life experience” and wanting to have a diverse (in its broadest sense) program play into the admissions decisions?
Are we really competing more with other writers of similar backgrounds?
That's a really good question, Cate. My assumption has always been that graduate admissions is more 'merit-based' than its undergraduate counterpart. But even if you agree with me there, that still leaves a lot of room for the sort of diversity-mindedness you're describing.
You make a good point. It's true that great writing really stands out. I can't argue that. But do we know how much great writing is out there? Maybe we shouldn't say great writing because that sets the bar too high. So how many good writers are out there? And can we define good? If good writing is like alchemy, if it completely escapes analysis, then how can we know anything for certain? Personally, I read published stuff that people love, that wins awards, but I'm just not that into it. Does that make me stupid? Maybe. I've been called that before. But it likely comes down to subjectivity. We all like different stuff.
Now add in other factors like, "This guy's writing is a little raw, but he's lived an interesting life," or "this gal's stories are a bit too abstract, but she has a 4.0 from Harvard," and things get even shakier. If our writing samples account for 90%, the 10% comes from somewhere. The boring person who graduated from a 4th tier state school with a gpa of 2.8 and who has amazing stories might get passed up for the interesting guy with the solid stories or the genius gal with the abstruse prose. You can't blame the adcoms for that decision. They want to teach the interesting guy and the genius gal how to write better than the boring person.
A lot goes into these decisions, and we have no idea what.
Although I gotta say, there's a lot of writing out there that I may not like, but I can admit is well-done, or at the very least has clear appeal. Remove that from the broader category of 'writing that doesn't appeal to me' and you're left without much.
How about you? Can you usually understand why someone would like something, even if you don't?
And it's that very uncertainty about what's out there that is what prevents me from having a clue where I'm going to get in. If I had to compete with the Robert Earles or Matthew Aaron Goodmans of the world (two people I know personally who got their MFAs not all that long ago), then I'd be totally screwed. But somehow I think I don't have to be quite that good.
By the way, I want to apologize beforehand if anyone reads my posts and thinks I'm being overly negative. That's not my intention. I think nearly everyone will end up somewhere they're happy, and if they don't, they might have the best year of their lives doing something outside of school.
I actually think that this dose of reality is making me feel better, after the initial response of "say what?". I don't know, if it happens it happens, if it doesn't it doesn't. I'm really happy to have a job right now, to have not have any financial/health issues, to have friends. Life's not perfect, but it could be worse. I have many years to get my MFA and publish and make millions of dollars as a writer (I'm totally kidding, btw), so I can wait. It's out of my hands *repeats over and over*
I often wonder myself about who exactly I'm competing with, what the average 'talent level' is in the applicant pool, as indefinable as that is. But really, there's no way to know--which makes following this blog all the worse, ha! I'm addicted, but it just makes my days longer and the weeks and months longer still. In the end, there are hundreds of people applying who aren't part of this community. I've read a few samples of folks on the blogs here and there's some pretty good stuff, and I'd like to think that's because we're the better-informed, better-prepared folks so our samples are *undoubtedly* better, right? But I know four or five people (split over genres) who are very good writers applying to programs, who don't partake here online. In conclusion: we're doomed to speculate on the quality of other applicants, but that speculating's probably not very useful.
All the same: keep posting your speculation because I'm addicted to it.
It is interesting to speculate. I wonder sometimes if the proliferation of writing programs has had the effect of bringing more high quality writers from the general populace into academic programs or whether it has just lowered the bar (and that's not meant negatively) for admissions in general.
Initially, I'm inclined to believe the former...then again I'm an optimist to a fault. :D
As with most things, the answer probably lies somewhere in between.
Even with the possibility of a big increase in applicant this year, there are two or three times as many programs as there were in the early 90s. It's not clear to me that it's harder to get into an MFA program now than it was then (holding the applicants talent/background as a constant).
Okay, first let me say that I'm just talking because I find this topic interesting. I am not trying to be depressing! Everyone has a great shot at getting in to these great schools. Plenty of people on this board WILL receive acceptances from great programs. Book it. So if you're reading this, it might be you.
@Dreux re: uncertainty
I don't think you have to be a great writer either. There are plenty of current and former MFA students who really aren't that great at writing yet. Or at least let me say, are not great writers. That's why a lot of slush pile readers complain about MFA'ers and why the vast majority of MFA'ers never launch wildly successful careers. But if that's the case, then now we really don't know anything about what's good and what's bad. How can we even define good and bad when it comes to art?
Uncertainty is hard to deal with, YES. I don't have to say that to this board, that's for sure. But uncertainty due to subjectivity is also liberating. If we understand that a lot of what's going to happen with the adcoms has to do with luck (getting the right reader at the right time), then we will not, and SHOULD not, get defeated if things don't turn out. Nor should we think we're the total shit if things do turn out.
re: taste
I can usually understand why other people like the stories that I don't like. I almost never hate a famous, well regarded story/collection/novel. I usually just shrug at it and say, "It has a good subject," or, "it has a good prose style," etc. I almost always say, I respect it even though I don't like it. There are sometimes when I can't understand why people like it, and it usually happens with experimental fiction. But when that happens, I'm incredibly thankful that people in the world do love that particular piece because there needs to be stuff out there that's not for everyone.
hi everyone...my first post of this season...my last post last year was extremely unpleasant, so i apologize for anyone who remembers...anyway, for a quick feel good story about the absolute random decisions of these schools...after i blew up at the end of mfa recruiting last spring, i received a wonderful email from an individual that i had never met or spoken to who informed me that in '08 he applied to 16 schools and got 0 acceptances...in '09, he decided to only apply to six, and he ended up accepted to four...the real kicker: he informed me he sent the EXACT SAME MANUSCRIPTS in with 0 changes...insanity is performing the same activity and expecting a different result...maybe we're just all insane
Slush pile readers frequently complain about MFA'ers? I believe it. I just know so little about writing contests and the like that I hadn't heard that before. Though I've certainly heard my fair share of jokes at MFA grads' expense.
i thought so...made me feel better anyway! i'm with you kaybay...teacher here as well. i can't complain though...it's a nice gig to have, especially here in north louisiana where employment is about as fruitful as the dodo population
Well, actually, I have given this much consideration. While I will most likely return to teaching high school, a Master's degree will give me far more options for what I teach (subject) and where I teach (the right school for me and my teaching philosophy). I will be a much more competitive applicant with a Master's degree, too. I will also get paid a little bit more. I can adjunct at night and hopefully work my way up to a full-time position at a college somewhere, it does happen, although rarely. Not having to work over the summer also gives me to time to write, so that's a perk too.
This is not a recommendation for teaching high school, by the way, it's not for everyone. In fact, I would not say that I enjoy it.
The question of talent (how many applicants have it, and to what extent) is definitely the most intriguing one for me. Enough to draw me out of my lurkage! It's so frustrating that there's no way of measuring the most important factor in this entire selection process.
My guess is that a tiny percentage of samples are utterly painful to read and a tiny percentage are startlingly original/brilliant/definite shoo-ins. The rest (95%??) probably ranges from alright to pretty bloody good. Which leaves me... exactly where I started. Speculating.
Oh, to be able to read the application materials submitted by Gary Shteyngart, Michael Chabon or Junot Diaz! Just the thought makes me feel tingly all over. Whose samples would be at the top of your list?
one great thing about the master's is that you can teach full time at community colleges, and at most you can earn tenure...i teach at a cc now, and to be honest, it's pretty great. we make more than the university faculty in town, and i get to teach literature courses as well as comp. classes which is something that is not happening at a university when you only have your "lowly" master's!
I am really hoping that "life experience" doesn't factor too much into the decision process, because I basically have none yet. At least, I've never done any of those really interesting things that I hear other people talking about and think, "That's so fascinating." (Like backpacking across Europe or volunteering in third-world countries, you know.)
I guess that just looking at what I've done in life so far, someone might think it's boring. I'm quite young and my life so far, at least as it may appear, basically boils down to going to school, working a mixture of crappy and not-crappy part-time jobs, sitting around various places reading books (or alternately, sitting around with a bunch of people and talking about books), occasionally getting myself into uncomfortable messes (but quickly running away), imagining, and writing.
However, I think of "life experience" as not just the Big Events that happen to a person, but his/her daily experience of the world. Even if that experience consists of something seemingly boring, what matters to me is a person's way of being in the world & thinking about it. And in our case, distilling all of that into stories/poems/essays/etc. Poems, for me. I think that life is incredibly rich for writers, because of all our unique ways of seeing and reacting to the world around us, and reacting to the inexplicable fact of being in the world. In my case, I haven't "done" much, but I've thought, observed, and written a lot.
Ok, end ramble. Basically I mean that I hope the adcoms will read my writing sample and NOT think, "Wow, all this girl ever does is walk around towns and ride subways and look out windows and then write about it." I hope they'll share my opinion that all of that ordinary stuff and the richly specific details of everyday life are incredibly important. *shrug*
It'd be cool to read Chabon's fiction sample but I'd be more interested in his SOP. He has a very poised voice--very confident, but still approachable--and it'd be great to see if he arrived at his program fully formed (or how close to he was to where he is now).
It definitely seems like the MFA being the terminal degree in the field is slowly changing as far as even getting considered for full-time university positions (tenured or non-tenured). Of course, a strong publication record (top journals and/or a book) will get you jobs more than anything. But how many people (even from top programs) have books or a string of top tier journal publications fresh after graduation? (or ever) 1%? 2? Less? A PHD in anything sounds like a good idea for someone who is hell bent in staying in academia (Rhetoric PHDs are a lot more marketable than CW PHDs though). But It's been said many times - the MFA doesn't guarantee anything.
I'm definitely no expert on this, but I think it's easier to get an MFA now than ever before. There are so many programs. I think it's important to remember that the supply is not driving the demand. The reason there are so many MFA programs is because there are so many people who want them. Thus, new ones keep popping up, and that's why the MFA has such a low value now.
However, I think it's probably harder to get into the really competitive schools now than before. With more and more people working their way toward MFAs, the samples have gotten much better. Plus, with everyone sending out multiple applications, schools like Iowa probably receive more applications than ever before.
Ahh, this is so exciting...just now discovered this blog and it is so nice to see that there are others out there who are as nervous, excited, and relieved to be done with the whole application process as I am! Good luck to everyone and congrats to those who have already heard back from places!! :)
I'm completely with you. I think it's a misconception that a lot of people have that the majority of the fiction being written out there is absolute garbage. Well, let me specify. The majority of the stuff being written is really bad, but the vast majority of the stuff that gets submitted is average.
It's not a triangle with the best at the peak and the garbage at the base. It's more like a diamond. A little brilliant, a little awful, and a whole lot of average in the middle.
Because of all the increased interest in MFA programs, I'd assume that there's going to be an increase in submissions to slush piles as well. As more ppl look to writing as a career (or at least as a vocation), we're going to see larger numbers of writers submitting their stuff. That is a good thing, I think, because it raises the quality of the journals and mags but it will also open more doors for non-MFA grads. That is, a writer will be able to get a job in academia based upon a solid and stellar publishing record instead of needing a degree and a few pubs here/there/wherever. As the journals get better--not just the big name ones, but the smaller ones too--writers will have more venues to publish good stuff and have more opportunities to develop a shiny CV.
Man, too many interesting conversations here ... I need to stop responding to everything. I'm getting tired.
@Laura re:life experience
I'm a poetry dummy, so I can only speak from a fiction point of view.
I completely agree with you. Interesting literary fiction, at least to me, is about unconventional perspectives on ordinary things. Unconventional perspectives because it's fresh and original. Ordinary things because we can all relate to them.
Just as you pointed out, a person does not need to have lived a life on the streets or in a foreign land or a foreign culture in order to have a fresh perspective. A person can just be extremely bright, or funny, or quirky, or just flat out be a terrific writer. There are other ways too. Writers can use techniques like ostranenie to shine new light on familiar events or people. Another great way to implement an unconventional perspective is to use magical realism or some other type of genre blending. There are lots of ways for people to stand out and show us new things. Because let's face it, as readers we're all looking to be startled.
However, having lived a different-than-the-norm kind of life is like having that unconventional perspective ready made with a certificate of authenticity. I think that's why a lot of adcoms like it.
Brad Neely's "Wizard People, Dear Reader," his dubbing of the first Harry Potter movie with some really hilarious stuff. You can see it on youtube in pieces or go to illegal-art.com to download the audio.
That's assuming MFA students still want to be writers after going through a program. I'm sure many don't. Also, I know a few former MFAs that barely think about submitting anything at all, and I'm sure they aren't the only ones. I think most folks leave the idea of writing as a career and even publishing anything at the door when they graduate. That's why I think it's b.s. when people attack MFA programs for ruining contemporary literature. Like anything in life, it's the survival of the fittest. But you make a good point about MFAs giving life to literary journals (and in turn the small press). More MFA programs means more journals and that means more opportunities for the cream to rise to the top in an already insanely competitive field.
"That is, a writer will be able to get a job in academia based upon a solid and stellar publishing record instead of needing a degree and a few pubs here/there/wherever"
I'm not so sure about this esp. if you are talking about creative writing positions. Universities like "team players" and MFAs are sort of like the Mutant brother hiding in the basement. Does the Mutant brother do tricks? (translation: Pushcart, O. Henry, National Book Award - name your poison). Well, maybe just maybe he can come out to play.
. . . in other words, what chance does someone with no credential have? The academic job market in the humanities is just getting bleaker. One of my fav. professors in college had to leave despite his popularity (he was an Iowa alum) due to cut backs. He eventually came back but not as part of the administrative staff (and not a teacher). Some schools are eliminating departments like philosophy and classics completely. Just the way things are going unfortunately.
Gotbisco, I kind of agree with WT here. I think it makes sense that, being so competitive already, the rise in applicants will do wonders for the literary world. What's cool about it too is that, because actual "literary" writing has such a small following (ie, compared to like Twilight fans), the competition is going to only increase, not decrease. Because demand is much lower for "good" writing, as unquantifiable and biased as that may sound, it will never reach the point (like music has, for instance), where there are thousands of shitty writers who make millions and have great, meaning successful based on sales, careers, while the rest of the good ones get stuck with being starving artists.
I guess what I'm trying to say, in short, is that there may be a few Fall Out Boys and Green Days out there for the writing world, but the oportunity will be there to squeeze the fruit of the best writers around into 100% juice.
Sorry for the random metaphors.
Also, I don't think that writers will EVER be able to go off writing cred. to teach. Maybe at J-Cols or other very small institutions, but they are ALWAYS going to want at least a little teaching experience. I'm a big advocate for teachers knowing what they are talking about (ie I hate education degrees because you spend more time learning BS teaching techniques instead of what you are supposed to teach), but at the same time, they have to know what they are doing.
Little poet, I respectfully disagree about the publication vs. teaching experience issue. Sure, certain programs (UNCG, I've heard) are rigorous in assessing a potential hire's teaching and workshop-leading abilities. But I'm also hard pressed to think of a program that wouldn't gladly give Thomas Pynchon a post, even if he's never taught a class.
Frankish, but I thought we were talking about people who were new, or at least newish, to the whole writing world. Everyone knows who Thomas Pynchon is, and you would be hard-pressed to find someone who didn't respect his writing at least, much less the majority of which I would assume recognize him (as Harold Bloom does, not that I'm huge on HB, just saying), that Pynchon is one of the five most important writers of the 20th century.
I kind of get what you're saying, but I think if Pynchon came to almost ANY school and said, guys, I'm broke. I canz teach herez? They might even fire someone to make room.
But take, I don't know, a more immediate example. Seth Abramson? I mean, even with his (many) publications, his blog, his rankings, and his collection, I think you would be hard-pressed to find a nationally-known school to just outright accept him on writing cred. alone. That's all I'm saying.
Uh, I'm fully aware that Virginia is not in the Midwest. I was merely mentioning the places I applied to that would be a cool change of scenery from where I've lived in the past.
Obviously Pynchon and his ilk would probably be given concessions but they are exceptions. And just because someone is a great writer doesn't mean that they would do any kind of good for students. They could be a complete jack ass. If you look at job postings for any kind of teaching position, the qualifications are pretty clear. CW positions at the tenure track level aren't exactly common. The same could even be said about temporary/contractual positions. The people applying for these jobs that have a fighting chance are all going to be well-published (seeing that this is usually also a requirement), but why is a department going to hire a well-published jackass when they could hire a well-published dedicated teacher?
I was joking with the Thomas Pynchon bit...guess I should have used an emoticon of some sort. :P
But I do think that publication often trumps teaching experience, as there are other benefits a well-known writer can bring a program such as alumni support/funding, prestige in recruiting students, etc.
Yeah, but a university generally doesn't hire a straight non-teacher sort. And by generally I mean almost never do they hire non-teachers. So maybe you're meaning publishing is like a flush while having both teaching and pub. creds are like a straight flush, the pubs. maybe being the straight part.
Does anyone else sometimes feel like a schizophrenic when you read/think about this comment section.
I just imagine a group of MFA apps sitting by themselves, rocking back and forth, mumbling expected notification dates, acceptance rates, random names of authors, names of programs, titles of stories.
"Grummdnnnenn...Last year... Oh-eight... Iowa... Iowa City... Uni of Iowa... notified by phone on February twenty five... twenty five... twenty five is five times five... five plus five is ten... I applied to ten schools... Florida... Mickey Mouse... Arizona... Wallace... Foster... David... ASU... grummdmmm.... Brown... one percent... experiment... "Everything that rises".... "Everything"... "Converge"... "Everything that rises".... "must"... "Converge"....grumdmdhhdmm...
Pencore, are you watching me? Kind of creepy. I've actually kept away from this blog a lot for the past few days. Kind of got depressed by not hearing from Bama or OSU. Yes, I know it's not over. I hate being patient. haha
Yeah. Reading about fractal time on Wikipedia does not help with the feeling schizophrenic thing.
"According to Terence McKenna, who conceived the idea over several years in the early-mid 1970s while using psilocybin mushrooms and DMT, the universe has a teleological attractor at the end of time that increases interconnectedness, eventually reaching a singularity of infinite complexity in 2012, at which point anything and everything imaginable will occur instantaneously."
Stranger Hi, I got to know this from someone teaching at Iowa - the apps have doubled this year and so they are still sorting out apps. The first level of sorting is happening it's only after this will they then start the next level of narrowing it down...
If ya'll ever wonder what it would be like to be a creative writing student who also moonlights as a battle rapper, check this out at 4:38 to see your battle opponent call you out on it.
Need some advice - I'm not your typical MFA student - that is to say that I don't have a literary undergrad degree but I write fiction. Pacific University needs a critical analysis. Maximum of three pages exploring some aspect of or element of craft in a literary work. Guys I've not done this before just needed some tips on starting it....thanks so much everyone - this blog has been a support system for me...
Nefrettiti, I have a very hard time believing that Iowa applications have "doubled," but I don't doubt that they are up. Did your source actually imply that there were 2400 applications this year?
WOWOWOWOOWOW i just got home from work and found 200 new comments, including Tory's. Is anyone else who applied in fiction to OSU totally effing bummed out like CRAZY? I am so glad to be able to commiserate. I'm having one of those "wont-get-in-anywhere" days. Hopefully it will pass.
My critical sample is a literary analysis, so it might not be the most helpful for what you are writing, but if you don't even know where to start, it might help. Let me know.
I can totally relate to everything you're saying. While I actually have had a lot of traumatic emotional life experience and some travel, I can't compete with a 30 year old in terms of quantity of experience. However, like you said, it's the quality of the experience that matters. You can go through everything in the world and not absorb or appreciate it, but as writers we do that on a daily basis.
Here's a quick question that will probably be much more relevant in a couple of months:
Assuming that you haven't been accepted anywhere (yet), how long do you wait until you contact a school to see if you're on the wait-list or if you've been rejected???
I'm thinking like late March, right?
I understand the reasoning behind some schools sending out late rejections; but it sure makes the whole process much more stressful for the applicants...
Michael, last year I can't remember anyone calling the school to ask about being waitlisted. The chances are, unless your mail takes forever to get there, you should wait until hearing from them, because you will hear about a decision they make either way. Once you've gotten your stuff to them, it sucks, but there's nothing else poractive you can really do to speed up an adcom, or others deciding over admission. They'll let you know.
Am I the only one freaking this much already? I must be. I'm in a weird transitional stage as it is (getting married in July and moving to where she lives because she teaches and I don't work full time or have my insurance through work-irony is I still make more money than her), so with just hearing so far that acceptances at UA and OSU went out, I'm looking up alteratives, or as I like to call them, "wtf am i gonna do now in this gdmfing economy" scenarios. It's only February first; calm down, I tell myself. Yeah, good try.
Nef, Iowa got 1209 applications last year total (http://sethabramson.blogspot.com/2010/01/2010-mfa-rankings-selectivity_26.html), so not sure what you're referring to. Maybe just in fiction?
Totally loved the philosophizing that was going on earlier in the comments!
re: chances. For those of us who actually post here isn't it encouraging that a few of us have been accepted already? Doesn't it seem statistically impossible for everyone who posts comments to be completely shut out? Maybe it's the eternal optimist in me but I think simply by being a part of this community we increase our chances? Any mathematicians out there to confirm this?
I couldn't sleep at all last night, and in a few minutes I have to go to work and pretend everything's OK because no one there knows about my MFA hopes.
Tory's news about OSU completely depressed me last night. I know it's not hopeless yet, as I'm sure there will be a waitlist, but the resulting sleepless night made me realize I should stay away from this blog and from TSE for a while. I think my precarious emotional state will probably be better served if I can pretend that most of my schools haven't notified anyone yet, so that I can feel there's no reason to worry.
Ugh. Best of luck to everyone here, and I'll probably be back in a few weeks. It's been wonderful to know I'm not the only one freaking out - you guys are great, and I'm very thankful for you and this blog.
Sooooooo, after the somewhat confusing email we all received from wisconsin, would it be bad if I called them because their site says I'm missing one of my rec letters?
@phillywriter - For what it's worth, I feel your pain. I'm thankful to Tory and the acceptees, who let us know what's really going on in the process. But the news that acceptance notifications have gone out is always a tough blow to those of us who don't receive them. It's the curse of applying to early notifiers like Alabama or OSU -- odds are, people like us will get bad news before we get good news. But it doesn't mean we'll never get any good news! I'm just trying to keep that in mind. And as many others have said, there's always the chance we'll hear good news from an early notifier later. Good luck to you! (You probably won't even read this, though.)
@Emily - I've applied to UNLV! I'm interested in their international focus in a foreign-speaking country because I would like to spend some time in Italy translating Giuseppe Ungaretti. Many of his poems have been translated into English, but I don't think any of his complete collections have been translated. At least, there are currently none in print.
Judging from people's comments about Johns Hopkins in an earlier thread, though, it sounds like maybe the UNLV's requirement to do at least one semester abroad in a foreign speaking country might put people off. Maybe?
I've also applied to the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) because it is a fully bilingual program, in Spanish and English, that accepts applicants from the US and from Latin America. I'm a poet who doesn't really love writing fiction in English but, for some reason, I truly love writing fiction in Spanish! I can't explain it. I've tried to write poetry in Spanish and it's just terrible, never ever good. But I love writing stories in Spanish, so I feel like maybe my weird blend of interests might be uniquely suitable for UTEP. Maybe?
I haven't seen anybody else, in these forums, apply to UTEP. I thought maybe it could be because their funding is irregular, not everybody is guaranteed a TAship and tuition isn't waived even for TAs. Or maybe because isn't on any Kealy/Abramson lists -- or anybody else's lists. Or maybe the close border with Chihuahua scares people. UTEP doesn't have a language test that students have to pass, but maybe the presence of two languages is intimidating to potential applicants(?) The instructors seem to be highly accomplished, fascinating people from the US and Latin America. And although I don't love everything in the Rio Grand Review, I like the type of work it publishes. It seems to be right up my alley.
Ok this may be a kind of self promotion, but I think it also doubles as a Monday morning distraction from waiting for the phone to ring.
http://tinyurl.com/yzslqb8
I have years and years of journals (maybe some of you do too-- i feel like some writers are into them, some aren't) but in a moment of self-deprecation last year I started posting them and dissecting/making fun of them online.
No, I did not use these as my manuscripts for applications... but I'm gonna be honest, I probably should have. I think I might have done my most honest/creative/incisive writing back in 1994.
My boyfriend got into SAIC for his MFA in Performance! Is it weird that I'm using this to feel the vicarious thrill of acceptance?
I must say, at the least, it's cool to have a fun backup: if I get flat-out rejected everywhere, I can at least follow him to Chicago, one of my very favorite cities.
He is being very prudent about his decision, of course, as he still hasn't event SENT all of his applications, but still...CHICAGO!
I hope all of you find a cool distraction like this! It's a good thing to forget about yourself for a while.
@Trilbe - I'm guessing you already know this, but just in case you don't, NYU has a Spanish language MFA program: http://cwspanish.as.nyu.edu/page/mfaprogram
I applied to UTEP. It's my wild-card program. Also to UNLV (I'd pursue the Peace Corps option if I went there) and to Hopkins (probably my top choice as of now).
Language requirements don't scare me off. To me they indicate an interesting and open-minded approach to crafting an MFA curriculum.
@BookMoth - Thank you so much for this information! I've applied to NYU, but I didn't know about NYU's Spanish-language MFA until now. This program makes NYU even more attractive to me, because I would love to have the opportunity to take creative writing workshops with Latin American MFA students!
My research wasn't as thorough as I thought it was -- I didn't discover UTEP's program until two weeks ago, I'm ashamed to admit. I really did go through the entire AWP list, school by school, when I began putting together my list but I somehow missed the info about UTEP being bilingual or I read it and forgot about it. How did I do that?!
Assuming I get accepted somewhere, I'd hoped to take creative writing classes in the Spanish department, to continue reading and writing Spanish fiction. And I hope to continue translating Ungaretti, whether or not I get to do it in Italy.
?Hablas espanol, Book Moth? Si quieras intercambiar sus cuentos con mi, me gusta eso.
Trilbe, I took a look at El Paso and considered it, but I decided against it because of both funding and the fact that my Spanish isn't good enough. They do say it isn't a requirement, but I know there will be stories and discussions going on in Spanish. I don't think I'd be able to follow for at least the first year. It sounds like a waste of precious time if you aren't fully bilingual, though you'll certainly be gaining in the area of language comprehension if nothing else. UNLV, on the other hand, I did end up applying to. In fact, it is ALMOST secretly my number one choice is some ways. I'm really excited about the international and translation aspect. I would plan to go to Argentina where I'd feel better about expanding my spanish than I would in El Paso. When I was younger, I always wanted to go into the Peace Corps, but I've become jaded about anything run by government and I've heard too many stories of covered up assaults, not to mention what happened after Deborah Gardner died. I've just become too cynical, though a part of me really still wants to do it.
Does anyone know if Iowa is one of those schools that contacts you if you're missing transcripts or letters (aka the things that can't be confirmed by getting back the self-addressed postcard)?
Yikes. February 1st and our comments have turned into a blended smoothie of raucous anxiety and philosophy. :) I'm very nervous. Yesterday I would have told you that I couldn't wait for February 1, today I just feel like I'm now waiting for mid-March.
On the talent level of applicants: I had been assuming that like 10% of the samples to any program might be crap, but that a good 30-40% might just be bad fits for the program. Right? I mean, surely a lot of people apply places where their writing may not gel with that of the department... and thus also get a pretty quick toss in the bin... I don't know, I suppose we ARE all being a little overanalytical.
In the interest of optimism: Yes, we have a better chance because we're on this blog (why do you think I came out of lurkdom? For the very real increase in my chances. :)) I do believe that hearing people's stories about app failure followed by success in a year or so is VERY reassuring... I'm also applying for high school teaching jobs this year, so that's my plan B. Kaybay, why so down on the high school teaching?
Oh, and on movie adaptations... I'm reading Forrest Gump right now. Waaaayyy different from the movie in some ways. Is anyone else finding it hard to sit and read "booklist" fiction, like super-literary, with their application(s) out there? I find myself burrowing in my fluff, pulp-fiction because I cannot shut off the "How good is this? How good was my sample? Where do I stand?" rant that starts when I try picking up Chekhov or Barthelme, for example.
Thought some of you might be interested; John McNally's new book, "After the Workshop" looks great. Just in case we need to get any more meta.
Here's what Kirkus says about it:
"McNally enthusiastically rakes the literary profession over the coals in his cutting fictional biography of Jack Hercules Sheahan, once a wunderkind of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a New Yorker–published writer with great potential and even greater opportunities. The novel smartly picks up Jack’s story a decade after his well has run dry, as he subsists by ushering famous and not-so-famous writers to their hotels, bookstore readings and many, many bars… A ribald deconstruction, packed with literary in-jokes, of an industry in love with its own absurdities."
@ Marinara- have you checked your status on ISIS? It doesn't list recommendations, but it does list transcripts and GRES and stuff. I found out they didn't get my transcripts by checking it; no one emailed me or anything.
999 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 401 – 600 of 999 Newer› Newest»If we go by last year, Ohio & Bama are both late (for Fiction).
Interesting as well is that Ohio for the last three years sent out notifications for all three genres at the same time. This is the firs time they notified a poet without alerting CNF and F as well.
I really wish I didn't know this.
Has anyone but Emily heard from UBC? (Or applied there?) It's brutal not hearing from a school that has sent out acceptances! I know I'm stating the obvious here, but i'm starting to feel crazy!
So yes, Monday can't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned. I'll be on vacation for three days in LA later in the week. So I don't want to hear any bad news then!! =)
Some programs have traditionally notified on the weekend.
Thank God AWP is later this year. Can you imagine if our schools were all gonna take a f*ing break next week?!
As a native Midwesterner, I have a couple comments about location.
1. People in the Midwest love to hunt. Love it. Don't be surprised by deer heads 'round these parts. Hunting comes up in my poetry a lot, even though I don't do it myself.
2. Not all places that fit some of the stereotypes of what people think of the Midwest are necessarily unfriendly. I agree with many of you who have said that it's good to be out of your comfort zone for a while. I don't think anyone should feel unsafe, at least not in any of the places I've been in the Midwest.
3. As a liberal hipster (for lack of a better word) and non-drinking Christian square, I never feel like I fit in anywhere. Isn't that what it's supposed to be like? I mean, I somewhat assumed that most people true to themselves didn't really fit into one particular subgroup. I'm assuming that no matter where I live (so far, it's been East Coast and Midwest), at least one aspect of my personality will find some kindred.
@Durenda:
No doubt, this is the sort of thing I was wondering about. Because my understanding is that there is the coastal south and then the South. Like, the difference between where I grew up, in Bluffton, SC (an artsy little eccentric town) and upstate, inland SC places like Greenville / Spartanburg area. I'm again hoping that places with a serious college / university are going to be a little more like the coastal areas: artsy, eccentric, tolerant, etc. But I am not a church-goer, either, so we'll see. The line I usually use about stuff like that is, my mother was Catholic, my father was Presbyterian, so we were raised neutral, like Switzerland. That meant occasionally visiting the Episcopalian church on Easter. We'll see.
Hey friends,
Not to douse anyone's hopes, but I can confirm OSU sent out notifications of acceptance across all three genres on Friday. I believe that there is a wait list, but I don't think the adcoms notify wait listers until later.
@Tory
Just curious--I didn't apply to Ohio State--how did you find that out? I have a friend who applied there, and wouldn't want to pass along that notice without having the facts.
I looooooove Bluffton!! And Hilton Head, of course. Why can't there be a good MFA program there?? Or Savannah. Speaking of which, does anybody know anything about SCAD's MFA in "Writing"??
Sorry, I didn't realize my inane comment came right after a more serious tidbit of info...
Anyone have any advice on what to do when an entire online application system is down? That's the case with Southern Illinois - Carbondale right now. And tomorrow's the deadline!
I emailed the English Department and their webmaster asking what's up. (Plus, I mailed my manuscript and the paper parts of the app weeks ago.)
Any guidance would be much appreciated!
@Adam, I'd definitely call. It might be that no one is in today, but you can try first thing in the morning. Also, if you're very worried about it, you might fill out a paper application (most schools have paper application options, even if they prefer online apps) and mail it in with a check for the fee tomorrow, as most deadlines are postmark rather than receipt deadlines.
That said, I haven't checked out this particular school, so the above might or might not apply.
Good luck!
Hey Kaybay,
At the risk of sounding like a dissident, what do you find appealing about Savannah? Are you from Georgia? (I live 45 minutes from savannah and have my entire life).
@frankish: Thanks - unfortunately, the *entire graduate admissions website* is down. Which means I can't even print something out.
I'll call first thing in the morning, though. Thanks!
Adam,
Funny thing. This happened with the Illinois, Urbana-Champaign online app too. It was due on 11/17 at 12 noon, but someone messed up the settings so that the system actually shut down on midnight, between 11/16-11/17, thus cutting off 12 hours of submitting time!
I panicked when I tried to submit it at 1 AM, the morning of 11/17 and it wouldn't let me. But then I figured that I hadn't messed up, and that programs are very reasonable. I went to bed, slept well, woke up early and called the program. The office assistant was very understanding and said that the English dept. decided to give everyone another DAY to submit their online apps.
I bet you'll end up with the same situation. Just get up early, call, explain the situation. Good luck!
Adam,
You should call. I had a problem with the website and it took them 7 days to reply by email. It wasn't down to the wire, so I wasn't stressing about.
Also, I got an email from the graduate program asking me to submit my application (even though I already had) and they cleared it up within a day. They were also really nice about it.
@Brandi
I love the architecture, the food, the history (I actually went on a ghost tour there, which I know seems kind of lame, but I loved it! It was totally hokey, but so much fun and I loved learning about the history, especially the yellow fever stuff). I think the marshes in that whole area are really cool, although a little stinky at times. And there are two great beaches and beach towns nearby, like Hilton Head and Tybee Island.
I could be speaking out of my ass here, but it felt more "mainstream" there as opposed to other areas of the South, mainly because of the tourist element. It seemed a little more traditional, artsy, funky, etc... I liked it :)
Haha, yeah I've been on a few ghost tours too. It is very touristy, which means that you can drink on Sundays.
I didn't apply to Ohio State either, but Tory's comment made me feel a little hopeless about the whole process for some reason. I just can't believe that we (including the people on TSE and P&W boards) haven't heard anything except for one poetry acceptance. I'm most definitely not accusing Tory of making this up, but I'm not sure what to think of it if it's true. More applicants? So many applicants spread out that it's a rarity to have someone post it online??
I think he is the same Tory that goes to OSU, but I could be wrong.
I didn't apply to OSU, but I'm really rooting for you guys. Don't loose hope until you have a rejection in your hands.
Ugh, I might be a poetry applicant, but swear I can spell lose.
There is the unnerving possibility that all those who received notifications on Friday proceeded to go on celebratory weekend-long benders, thus rendering them unable or unmotivated to spread the news online.
Thanks, gang, for the advice re: SIUC. I'll surely call first thing in the morning!
And don't worry, I won't panic - especially since my manuscript, department app, assistantship form, and recs are ALL in, sent weeks ago.
From the looks of the error message, it looks like someone is picking a really dummbbbb time to do site maintenance. Such is life!
RE: location, S/N, and being queer or marginalized in any other way - I agree with burlaper that to a large extent, no matter where we live, we'll feel that social edge. Some of us have to be cautious - and no matter how cautious, could encounter some blunt discrimination (queers are beaten to death in liberal progressive cities, too.) Being part of a writing community, I think, will help buffer that experience, wherever any of us end up. That being said, I do not consider Laramie, Wyoming a viable option for me. Nowayz, nunca, nada, ain't goin' there!
So what's my point? I'm not sure. I guess that this conversation is important, and that there is no clear answer is also important. But the issue is not so much south or north or anywhere else - it's society and how the marginalized cope. (I refer to Shakespeare's Othello to remind me this is nothing new, ie. society has less forgiveness for the marginalized to "break" a rule.) I don't know who said that writers are the witnesses for society, and as such, we tend to be watching from the outside, but isn't it so? It seems to me, yes. (I acknowledge in advance that there are fellow writers who don't share that view or see it as their role. No problem. There's room here for all of us. I feel, in some ways, forced into that role, just by the nature of where I stand in and out of community.)
Anyone else apply to Minnesota? They're supposed to notify pretty early too, no?
For anyone else having trouble with SIUC, I found a solution!
After some fishing around, I got out of SIU's Carbondale site and went to their "system" page that covers all of the branches. From there, I went to their admissions page, which has a Carbondale link that works! Huzzah!
http://admissions.siuc.edu/applynow.html
Jeez, for all this, I should get an MFA in Detective Work. (Which, if it existed, I would toooootally do.)
@Hannah
Minnesota has an announcement on their website that they won't be notifying applicants until mid-March. Record number of applicants, I believe it was 443 for 13 spots.
Does anyone have any word on Michigan this year??
@kaybay: You know, I'm so ambivalent about that response. I love positive comments about the place I grew up, but I'll be honest with you-- that place doesn't exist anymore. With all the annexations, migrations and marketeering, Bluffton is now like the Disney Epcot version of the town I knew. I know this is / was happening all over the south before the recession... Development and Devil have a lot in common for the verbally oriented. Hilton Head has always been like that, though... I mean, always. Before the War it was a summer residence for out-of-towners. :) I don't know, some places are hard to be from, because you're outnumbered by those who aren't... if that makes sense.
I'm actually in Savannah this weekend, though I'm staying Midtown, not downtown... Ate at Lady & Sons last night, which was decadent and delightful. My mother, who's an oil painter, went to SCAD, and I entertain delightful fantasies where I not only get into Ole Miss' MFA program, but I then finish the MFA and get some teaching job at SCAD that allows me to take free classes... bwahaha. This is my nefarious plot to pick up, gratis, courses in Equestrian Studies, Photography, Historic Preservation (like, hands-on restoration of buildings in Savannah, how awesome is that) and Dramatic Writing!
I applied to a school in a part of the country with a reputation for being extremely conservative. I applied because it's a great program. However, I have mixed feelings about the location. I think I would be really irritated by people who think that unless I go to church I don't have any spiritual life and, therefore, am not to be trusted. It's one thing to see that kind of limited thinking covered by the news and be able to change the channel, but to actually live among folks who think that way would probably be hard for me. I mean, the bottom line is that it's none of their business. Certain areas of the country do seem to breed more of an odd sense of judgment entitlement in regard to other people's lives. And at the same time, I know that wonderful people live everywhere too. I wouldn't have applied if I didn't think I could adjust. Mostly, I just want to hear something from one of my schools!
Uh...
Tory's comment was a weekend-destroyer.
Ugh, ugh, ugh, oh well.
:(
Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but does anyone feel like Wisconsin might notify this week?
@Lauren
It is a weekend destroyer... but at least now we KNOW. That's some consolation... isn't it?!
Katie-Jane: that's probably the most interesting part of the South as a whole. Land is cheap and taxes are low, so businesses are rolling in (the Kia Plant in West Point, GA is a perfect example). This brings in new condos and new houses and new people, with new religions, accents, and lifestyles. The South is in transition. Some people are struggling with that and seek to retain some semblance of tradition and "home," something they are absolutely entitled to. Others are capitalizing on the transition and loving it. I have noticed, as a positive, that once marginalized groups, particularly African Americans, are enjoying the change because they can own and develop businesses and cultivate a lifestyle that they could not have had several decades ago (particularly in Atlanta. Regardless, many Southerners are learning how to deal with change and the loss of identity.
This is why Flannery O'Connor is one of my favorite writers. She wrote about this subject a lot (so did Faulkner a little bit), and I find it really interesting.
I know what you mean though. I was born in raised in a more white collar part of the Bay Area. I hadn't been there in about two years, went back last November, and realized that all of the old shopping centers that I would hang out in after school had been torn down and completely yuppified. I absolutely hated it. The town I grew up in is completely gone :(
@Lauren - Ugh. I didn't apply there but totally feel for you. When I read Tory's comment I was like damn damn damn damn why couldn't the people that got in be from this site?!?
You know, though, that most schools don't finalize their students for quite some time. If they liked your sample, there's still a good shot you could get in.
Good luck!
Isn't it funny how surprised we are that OSU notified across all three genres and WE didn't hear about it? When I read that comment I was like, "Doh!" (I did apply to OSU.) And then I was like, "How is that possible? We didn't even hear anything!" So, I guess we know now that there are applicants who either aren't in the MFA blog loop or that they aren't posting if they are. I'm in a delirious state of semi-denial, saying to myself, "Oh cool, now it won't be so hard for me to make my final choice between all the other places that will accept me! Awesome!" But really, it isn't over totally until you receive the rejection in the mail. Let's keep hope alive!
So, I was thinking that my phone was broken all yesterday. I kept checking the signal strength and battery because Indiana tends to notify on the last Saturday in January.
But it looks like the abused and maligned gadget might be working just fine. I'm not seeing that they called anyone else, either.
And so the waiting continues. I've realized that waiting at the MVD is much preferable to this.
Brandi/Kaybay,
I LOVE things like ghost tours. I always check to see if a city has one. San Francisco also has a pretty good Vampire tour which is even more cheesy. I actually went on a date on a ghost tour and we both covered ourselves with a sheet the entire time (as in a siamese ghost) - the tour guide loved us. Smoking was a bit difficult through the small holes we cut out for the eyes though.
Sorry, that should say "I was born and raised in a more BLUE collar part of the SAN FRANSISCO Bay Area." I got confused there with the colored collars....
I didn't apply to OSU but it seems kinda quick/soon for a school with a Dec 15th deadline to notify so soon, no?
Maybe the first round of notifications across genres went out last week. Perhaps they're still debating a few seats?
@Emily,
But here's the thing -- we don't know. Until a rejection letter is in your hands, you don't know. What if there is an unofficial wait list and they are going to do a second round of notifications? Sometimes people get acceptances in late March or even April.
Though THAT really IS wishful thinking, I guess.
@pencore,
Ohio State notifies this early every year, according to the TSE: http://sethabramson.blogspot.com/2010/01/2010-data-bank-cw-mamfaphd-application.html
*Sigh*
Didn't Tory say that they "sent out notifications" on Friday? Doesn't that open things up to the possibility of snail mail? That's just what I inferred from his comment. Maybe everyone isn't notified in the same way, so those of you who applied there shouldn't give up hope just yet!
Recent Lurker or one of the Others here, checking in. Thanks for all the information and the shared insanity. It's good to know I'm not the only crazy one.
I was looking at the last few blogs to see if any of you had mentioned this, but no luck so forgive me if I'm bringing up something you guys already beat to death.
Regarding fake-out emails, I don't know how many of you applied to ASU, but did anyone else find the ASU Asurite emails/process to be both hilarious and sadistic?
A couple Fridays back I submitted my electronic app some minutes before the midnight deadline. The following afternoon, I get an email from ASU with the subject "Welcome to Arizona State University." Now I'm thinking either there is a God or the Graduate Admissions people had a few cocktails late Friday night and agreed to send out a mass email with an ambiguous subject line, just to "mess with 'em."
I open the email and it's like "Welcome to Arizona State University web-based services." They couldn't have put "web-based services" in the subject line?
Now you log onto this site, and it's the same one you would use to register classes, create your student profile, etc. You can even create an asu.edu email address (which of course I did, immediately). I even tried to register for classes, thinking maybe this is some beautiful glitch and if I just register for classes, once they realize it they won't be able to reject me. That didn't work.
But the email does. Why give us an asu.edu email address before the program we've applied to has even had time to read our sample? It's like ASU is telling us, "get comfortable in there, play around a little, add some contacts, send some emails - why the heck not - until mid-March when we forever strip you of the precious asu.edu domain and crush your hopes and dreams while embarassing you with friends and family." (deep evil laughter)
I'm just going to stay logged in to my ASU email, so they can't take it back. Because that's how technology works.
Daniel, if you want to further extend your ASU fantasy, you could establish a facebook account w/ that email and start friending all your new classmates.
Daniel,
I found the ASU application process to be pretty smooth, but I don't think the program really knew what was up with the online application process. First they tell me I can submit recommendations online and then they tell me I should send them via mail. Same thing for the teaching assistantship application. I call the Graduate office and they tell me that departments handle supporting materials and then I call the department and they tell me to call the graduate office. *shrugs* At least everything got in okay.
@ Lauren. I'm with Frankish. Just because you weren't in the first batch doesn't mean you aren't still in the running. I think we all have to remember that, week by week, notification by notification. There will be several applicants who are accepted to multiple programs, but they can only attend ONE. As we all keep repeating, until there's a rejection letter in hand, there's hope.
Hi everyone,
I've been reading this blog and all of your comments for the past month, and I finally decided to say hi! I applied to 17 fiction programs and am completely stressed/freaking out about acceptances. Here is my list of schools:
Michigan
Wisconsin
Indiana
Minnesota
Iowa
Oregon State
Colorado
Western Michigan
Ohio University (M.A., not MFA)
Vanderbilt
Alabama
Florida
NYU
George Mason
BU
Penn State
Bowling Green
I'm honestly just praying I get into ONE school. Any of them. No one has heard anything about fiction acceptences from any of these schools....right?
*acceptances
Hi Other Emily :) We're all praying the same thing! And you can keep up on acceptances here: http://bit.ly/9ncNRh
my list!
Michener
Iowa
Michigan
Wisconsin
Miami (FL)
Montana
NYU
Washington U. (St Louis)
UNC Wilmington
Umass-Amherst
Minnesota (still haven't heard anything from them about whether my application is even complete)
UC-Boulder (ditto)
Syracuse (ditto)
Cornell (got an email long ago saying they would let me know if anything was missing ... no contact since)
George Mason (just found an email in my spambox – from almost a month ago! - saying they're missing a transcript. cue chest pain.)
oh internet, commiserate with all my woe!
@Xataro and Daniel
You both have given me a great chuckle. Thanks. Yeah, right, waiting it out at the MVD! And GotBisco suggesting opening up a Facebook account with that temporary ASU e-mail account. Invite the MFA faculty to be your facebook friend. (No, don't. I was only kidding.)
Are we getting punchy for this new week of potential calls? No matter what happens, DO NOT THROW YOUR PHONE ACROSS THE ROOM!
And, with so many people with multiple apps (in the teens), and little incentive to make their choice earlier than April 15, if they have one, some of us could be waiting 'til April (or May?) to know anything.
sh and others,
I am indeed the Tory who goes to OSU, lol. Accept no substitutes.
I received an email yesterday (Saturday) from one of the fiction profs saying she and one of the poetry profs were about to email the all ready accepted students to invite them to join our Facebook group and email us current students to learn more about the program. That's more or less how I know.
Now we usually offer 8 spots each in fiction and poetry, expecting to take 6 each. There are usually 4 people per genre on the waitlist. I think Nick, who was waitlisted last year (and got in this year w00t!), was notified in March that he had been waitlisted. We take 3 nonfiction people every year, and I know last year they did go to the waitlist after 1 of the 3 declined their offer. No idea how long the CNF waitlist is or when he was notified though.
As others have said here, it ain't over till you get a definitive rejection letter. Keep your spirits up...it's still ridiculously early in the game!!!
Thanks for letting us know, Tory... as heartbreaking as it is, we appreciate it!
Hey all,
I've been lurking for the last few days (as well as going through the comment threads around this time last year, to see when people got in to various places), and thought I'd FINALLY say hi. Going berserk is so much more fun if you can do it in good company, right?
My list (I applied for fiction):
Wisconsin
Michigan
Iowa
Cornell
Brown
Michener
U of Oregon
Pittsburgh
Portland State
@Cate: I really REALLY hope Wisconsin lets applicants know this week, and I think it's at least reasonable to hope so, since I got an email from them saying we'd know by feb. 14th or something like that (I'm sure you did, too). Fingers crossed!
Has anyone else applied to Las Vegas?
OK. So I've acknowledged here before that I am way slow at joining internet social networking groups. You've all been so good to me. (-: Do I have to do this Facebook thang? I mean, OSU notifies applicants and invites them to join in on Facebook? I'm thinkin' this is one more obstacle I just need to ignore (as in, just join Facebook, will ya?) It just gives me the heebyjeebies to be out there - it's such a big world, with people watching me while sitting in their basements with a single light bulb and a dripping faucet. I'm being way too paranoid, right? Does anyone out there share this trepidation?
yes, I'm afraid of the dark, at times.
I just checked wisconsin's site and it says i'm missing one of my rec letters. I saw a while back that a few other people were notified that they were missing stuff. Why didn't I get a notification?? Crap.
@Mostly Swell
I don't do Facebook. I don't want to be on Facebook. I suppose at some point I will succumb and join. If an MFA program wanted to add me as friend I think that would motivate me to join. For now, I resist.
Re: osu, my guess is that they've only called people who live abroad. Nick lives abroad, and so does one other person I know who got accepted (for poetry). So my guess is that everyone else will find out this week.
I'd like to go to sleep and wake up in mid-March. :P
frankish,
I second that emotion.
@ Brandi Wells, that makes me (continue to) question whether that WI email meant the status page would be up to date, as opposed to actual offers being made. If they have more applications by a third, do we really think they could notify in less than two weeks when--historically--they've notified at the very end of February?
@Farrah
I agree that it seems strange that they'd be able to be so prompt with the response, but I think that's very clearly what the email suggests. This quote, directly preceding the "if you don't know by Feb. 12th" statement, seems clear:
"You are no doubt anxious to have some word about your application status. We hope to convey this information to you and the other applicants in the very near future. In the meantime, we do ask for your patience. You will be hearing from us."
In particular, "We hope to convey this information to you" referencing "your application status."
According to this article, Vandy rec'd 615 applications this year.
(374 last year)
http://www.insidevandy.com/drupal/node/12312
Yikes.
Emily S. --
I myself did not apply to UNLV, but have a good poet-friend who applied there (and five other places, to my chagrin. I urged her for more to no avail) and talks about it like it's Eden. She's one of those infamous not-interested-in-MFA-blog people; not even a lurker... I think at this point she just doesn't want to freak herself out.
From her I hear it's a very tasty program. International focus and what-not.
I anticipate that the MFA mini-universe is about to explode into an entire cottage industry. I bet dozens of new websites, maybe even software for kids to put together their applications...these bumps in applicants are just huge.
I don't know why I wrote 'kids." I meant applicants.
But for real, this MFA thing is just going to keep getting bigger and bigger.
Ugh. Procrastinating. Exploring.
Wanna trade samples?
amylinjl [at] gmail [dotters] com
@BotBisco: and in a perfect world, bigger would mean more and more fellowship money. But what world do we live in?
@ sh . . . I think you're probably right. Especially since it came from the English Department and not "Graduate Admissions."
I think I'm hovering--not blissfully, mind you, not even close--in that hopeful place, that "application pending" place. For all the ulcer and stroke inducing joy of waiting, I'd hate to look back on this pre-notification period as the good 'ol days.
Well, I can cross Vandy off my list of potentials...
Seriously though, with those odds, even good writing will be rejected. I wonder how *anyone* gets accepted. How do you sift through hundreds, sometimes thousands of samples, and find a single one that shouts at every member of the committee?
I know that it's early to be admitting this, but I feel deep down in my heart that I will be rejected every where this year. The odds are just too high and I'm still progressing as a writer. I'm comfortable with next year, but this sucks!
And I refuse to join facebook too! Holla!
@Kerry
Thanks for the input. I know lots of people who don't and heels-in-the-ground-won't do Facebook. I agree, though, that if invited by an mfa program, I'm joining! (-;
If I don't get accepted, I'll be jumping outta that Schrödinger's Cat box and workin' on next year. It'll be the night of the living dead cat around here.
@kaybay
nonononononono...no...no...no. "I'm still progressing as a writer" means that you are MFA material. If you weren't progressing, who would want to be in the same room with you??? jeez! Now, just stop that! Now. OK?
So, obviously they have to look at more than the writing sample. If our writing sample absolutely sucks, forget it. But if it's decent with room for improvement, and something that peaks the curiosity of a committee member, someone who loves that very thing that you or I are struggling with, well, that could be the ticket. They do not want to work with perfect people! I just know that in my bones. Don't you, miss fried okra???? lol
so, chin up.
LOL, I love that post! Yes, I miss fried okra so much that I want to move to Tuscaloosa to eat some! Ya hear that Alabama??!! OKRA!
the comma is important.
but, oh how I do miss fried okra!!! lol
I meant to also say that they must look at the rest of the packet, don't you think? They want to know who we are and whether they feel like they can hang with us for the next two to three years, and whether they feel comfortable sharing the name of their institution with us. So, every part of our app packet is important. That's what I think, anyway.
Well, I don't miss fried okra that much. It would be fun to be in workshop with you, but I don't think we crossed over on any schools. I only applied to three UMich, UMinn, UWisc (alphabetical, I can't rank them.)
@Farrah - I agree something seems fishy. Why would they notify before Feb. 12th? If anything it should be later this year, right? That means after Feb. 23! And yet...
Maybe they just wanted to get it over with earlier this year. Maybe a committee member(s) had something else planned for the end of Feb.
My head says - it is just too early.
My heart says- it will be this week or next.
@Frankish, Yes, let’s all go into torpor and wake up in March!
@kaybay -
"I know that it's early to be admitting this, but I feel deep down in my heart that I will be rejected every where this year. The odds are just too high"
I feel the same way!!!
All my programs have a less than 3%AR
All this anxiety...why have we done this to ourselves???
Vandy got a 64% increase in applications? Wow. Vandy was on the rise anyway, but 64% is pretty outrageous.
re: Vandy
Three words: No application fee.
They've got alright funding too.. But the lack of fee probably bumped up their apps.
@Mostly Swell-
I guessssss... Wahhh. *wallows in self pity*
I would love to workshop with you too! But alas, I didn't apply to any of those schools. I wish I applied to Michigan, but my brother did a year of undergrad there before transferring to Michigan State and hated UM. I had that in the back of my head as I crossed it off my list. But what does he know anyway??
By the way, I'm going to go play the lottery, swim in the ocean, and stand outside in a lightning storm, because I'm pretty sure I have a better chance winning a jackpot, getting eaten by a shark, and getting hit by lightening than getting into a writing program. Phoooey! I kid, I kid...
@pencore
That's a good point about the no app fee. I forgot about that. It's a free lottery ticket, might as well take it.
I have no idea why I didn't apply there. I really wish I had.
Sam, I'll tell you why. Because they have over 600 applications for like 3 spots! ;)
In attempts to shift away from anxiety (ha! yeah right), I have a question. With all of the N/S discussion going on, is there anyone out there with some West coast love similar to mine? I'm from Arizona and now live in Washington. Everything's just cool up here, man. (Sorry, I'm just trying to convey the hippie love that exists up here in the PNW.) I'm excited at the prospect of new surroundings though (never even been to the Midwest!), particularly Virginia (Hollins is one of my top picks). Anyway, just thought I would speak up on behalf of those with little to no knowledge about N/S living who tend to reside in the West. Anybody out there?
@Cate
If my friend told me that it's better to dream recklessly rather than get stuck in reality, I'd slap them and tell them to wake the fuck up.
No, I'm kidding. I think many of us are dreamers by nature, so we give ourselves frequent reality checks to stay grounded. The higher you get, the harder the fall. Many of us are the walking wounded when it comes to dreams.
finally finished all my apps a few weeks ago and haven't been back here in a while. for what it's worth, this was where i ended up applying (in fiction):
florida
new mexico
american
george mason
iowa
alabama
virginia (uva)
hollins
good luck everyone!
@Sam
Keep in mind it's not REALLY free. You still have to pay for transcripts and GRE scores and mailing the manuscript.
re: Wisconsin
Another thing to keep in mind is that AWP was around this time last year, so that would have delayed the process. Maybe they're quicker this year with no interference from pesky writer's conferences.
@Kaybay
But it was free! You have a 0.5% chance of getting accepted to Vandy. I have a 0.00% chance.
I'm still holding on to the notion that these numbers do not mean anything to any of us as individuals. If they liked our work with 300 applicants or 1000, they like our work. Sure, it's true that the numbers mean we are competing against more people, but we haven't read their work or seen their SOP's or LOR's. What these numbers really mean is that the programs are inundated with bookoo amounts of stuff to read.
They're capturing more applications, but especially with the fully funded programs, but any offering of funding is enticing people to apply. The programs probably have a good radar on who's really committed.
Statistics and probabilities about groups apply to groups, not individuals. I really think that's important to keep in mind, This data is helpful and informing, but I see folks psyching themselves out with numbers. None of us will know until we get word specifically. Remember those numbers also include increasing numbers that each individual is applying to. I think Seth said that yes, there is a projected increase in the number of applicants overall. I don't remember his projected total, but it's not as much as these numbers imply.
Applying to a large number of programs helps your chances statistically of going somewhere next Fall.
@Sh
I didn't know they required GRE scores, so that would have played a role in my costs. Beyond that, however, it would have been practically free.
Initially I wanted to apply to 12 schools instead of ten, but I cut it down to 10 because of the costs. I think I would have applied to Vandy if I had been thinking properly back then. Perhaps I was looking for an excuse to end the hellish application process as soon as possible and didn't want to keep looking for more places to apply.
@DigAPony
Virginia is South, not Midwest. They'll definitely want you to know that. (This is not a slap at the south, just stating the facts. Virginia is a southern state and many there would take offense to being considered Midwest. Not a slap at Midwest either.)
Sam, you can still apply to McNeese State (at the risk of creating more competition for me ;) ). It is completely and totally free in the beginning. Just email a letter stating why you would want to go there and your writing sample to the program director. Easy as pie.
Thanks for the tip, Kaybay. That was nice. I'm going to look into it.
@kaybay
well, if you swim with sharks or buy a lottery ticket or stand in a lightening storm, yes, but if all you did of the four was apply to mfa programs, then I'd say, you have a better chance of getting into an mfa program. (;
nor was it a slap at Virginians.
@Sam -
Your comment made me laugh, because (at the time) I kind of wanted to reach out and slap her through the phone. However, I think she does have a point about positive thinking and remaining optimistic. No point in acting defeated until I’m actually defeated.
Plus, it just sounds nice...like fortune cookie wisdom. =)
@kaybay
I think that Vanderbilt's free application just means that they got three hundred horrible stories about vampires or car crashes. Or vampires waking up to their alarm clocks to go get in car crashes. I bet the free application is positively a lighting rod for crap.
The numbers are definitely incredibly grim, but I have to agree with those of you who have been saying that a big part of it must be that the average applicant is casting a much wider net. There's just no precedent for an increase in overall applicants that would account for the majority of the increases in applications received at a given school.
I do think this is going to make for a very emotional and potentially heartbreaking admissions season. As one previous poster noted, there's very little incentive for anyone who's been accepted to multiple programs to make a decision before April 15th. For that reason I think we're going to see a lot of people exit their notification period without much hope, only to come out with a bump-in off a waitlist that could come as far down the road as May.
If current trends continue, I think MFA admissions folk are going to have do something to streamline the stuff that takes place between the offer of admission and the admitted student's final decision. Because as things stand it's not set up to make drawing people off of the waitlist painless or easy.
I hope that if any of us are lucky enough to get into multiple programs we can be diligent about picking one and declining the others for the benefit of those still waiting.
@Mostly Swell
I agree with what you're saying. Most of the talk I do on this board is just off-the-cuff madness without any filter. Being a fairly reasonable person, I know that I'm not going to die or quit writing or become overly depressed if things don't work out. The numbers, our chances, etc, don't really mean much. We're going to keep writing regardless as long as it's important to us.
However, in this little crazy MFA waiting world, there is some significance to the increased numbers. The more samples they have to read, the less value each sample has. You can pick up an anthology of the best short stories ever written, and if you don't feel like reading them, you probably won't like most of them. More samples also means less reads and less time with each sample. It can also mean more readers which increases variance. Essentially, having more samples increases the variables and that makes "luck" a greater factor. I know that if I get into a school this year, especially after having done swaps with the fine writers on this board, I will know that it was more about being lucky than it was about being good. Obviously you have to be good, but there are lots of good writers and not very many spots.
But hey, outside of this little bubble we've created, it's just MFAs. We want them, but we don't necessarily need them. It's just fun to vent about our chances. :)
I have a goat ready to sacrifice to Baphomet. At this point, I'm going to have to resort to dark magic : - )
There are good writers and then there are good writers. A couple of my mentors, very established and successful authors, come to mind. They were writing at an astronomical level when they applied to MFAs. These are the kind of people who I know will come out on top 10 times out of 10 if their stories are read next to mine.
If I thought there were enough of them out there to fill every good MFA program, I wouldn't have bothered applying at all. I don't think there are, and that's why I personally believe in my chances. But the reality is that I can't possibly gauge the average quality of an MFA applicant's sample, nor can I know how much attention each sample gets and how the increase in applications might affect that, without having sat on an MFA admissions committee myself.
Sam, you said it much more coherently and rationally than I would ever be able to :)
My guess would be that they would probably start with the SOP's, perhaps even before the sample itself. If there are too many applications to read, and it gets dull/ exhausting, and a lot of them are good writers anyway, then perhaps here is when the SOP comes in effective. What more is to that person than technique? And if you have an interesting SOP, it helps. So...just a wild random guess here. I personally think it would make sense. Right??
I like to hope that people will be rejecting offers as quickly as they honestly can. If someone has three acceptances and they are able to cross one off, I'm hoping they would notify that school as early as they are able. For example, if you get into UT - hey, tell the other schools right away!
The more that I look at these numbers the more I see the overlap. We have a chance this year, really! It's there.
It feels like ages ago when we were discussing books made into movies. Now the distraction conversation seems to have died, but I need it more than ever! I recently saw Up in the Air and I loved it. Has anybody read the book? It is worth reading, or is it a mess?
Stranger,
I think it totally depends on the school. Some will value the SOP more than others. And in the case that they're bothering to read your SOP based on the strength of your sample, it definitely will be a get-to-know-you kind of thing.
Although we don't like to think about this, other information available to the department does come into play.
GREs/GPAs, I think, are very unlikely to figure into decisions at the departmental level. Not as much as SOPs, at least.
But what about recommendations? I think that in a close race, the writer with the stronger recommendations has a huge leg-up. Especially if those recommendations are written by authoritative figures who have attested in detail to your ability to contribute to an MFA program.
@WanderingTree
A deal with Satan will get you into the school of your choice with full funding, but it also comes with a lifetime of unemployment.
Actually, you don't have to deal with Satan to get that. That happens anyway. I'll bring the knife, bro.
Yeah, I remember reading an interview where an MFA director said that the MFA degree is a way of being unemployed and unemployable while the PHD was a way of being decently poor. Perhaps I'll have to broker deals with multiple deities.
I just did the math in my head for Vandy. Assuming 320 or so of those applicants are for fiction (a safe assumption), their acceptance rate for fiction this year is going to be just under 9/10 of a percent or so, right?
Wow.
We've talked about the importance (or lack of) placed on grades, GRE scores, recommendations, SOP, and the writing sample. How much does “life experience” and wanting to have a diverse (in its broadest sense) program play into the admissions decisions?
Are we really competing more with other writers of similar backgrounds?
That's a really good question, Cate. My assumption has always been that graduate admissions is more 'merit-based' than its undergraduate counterpart. But even if you agree with me there, that still leaves a lot of room for the sort of diversity-mindedness you're describing.
@Dreux
You make a good point. It's true that great writing really stands out. I can't argue that. But do we know how much great writing is out there? Maybe we shouldn't say great writing because that sets the bar too high. So how many good writers are out there? And can we define good? If good writing is like alchemy, if it completely escapes analysis, then how can we know anything for certain? Personally, I read published stuff that people love, that wins awards, but I'm just not that into it. Does that make me stupid? Maybe. I've been called that before. But it likely comes down to subjectivity. We all like different stuff.
Now add in other factors like, "This guy's writing is a little raw, but he's lived an interesting life," or "this gal's stories are a bit too abstract, but she has a 4.0 from Harvard," and things get even shakier. If our writing samples account for 90%, the 10% comes from somewhere. The boring person who graduated from a 4th tier state school with a gpa of 2.8 and who has amazing stories might get passed up for the interesting guy with the solid stories or the genius gal with the abstruse prose. You can't blame the adcoms for that decision. They want to teach the interesting guy and the genius gal how to write better than the boring person.
A lot goes into these decisions, and we have no idea what.
Amen, Sam.
Although I gotta say, there's a lot of writing out there that I may not like, but I can admit is well-done, or at the very least has clear appeal. Remove that from the broader category of 'writing that doesn't appeal to me' and you're left without much.
How about you? Can you usually understand why someone would like something, even if you don't?
And it's that very uncertainty about what's out there that is what prevents me from having a clue where I'm going to get in. If I had to compete with the Robert Earles or Matthew Aaron Goodmans of the world (two people I know personally who got their MFAs not all that long ago), then I'd be totally screwed. But somehow I think I don't have to be quite that good.
By the way, I want to apologize beforehand if anyone reads my posts and thinks I'm being overly negative. That's not my intention. I think nearly everyone will end up somewhere they're happy, and if they don't, they might have the best year of their lives doing something outside of school.
Sam-
I actually think that this dose of reality is making me feel better, after the initial response of "say what?". I don't know, if it happens it happens, if it doesn't it doesn't. I'm really happy to have a job right now, to have not have any financial/health issues, to have friends. Life's not perfect, but it could be worse. I have many years to get my MFA and publish and make millions of dollars as a writer (I'm totally kidding, btw), so I can wait. It's out of my hands *repeats over and over*
@Deux & Sam
I often wonder myself about who exactly I'm competing with, what the average 'talent level' is in the applicant pool, as indefinable as that is. But really, there's no way to know--which makes following this blog all the worse, ha! I'm addicted, but it just makes my days longer and the weeks and months longer still. In the end, there are hundreds of people applying who aren't part of this community. I've read a few samples of folks on the blogs here and there's some pretty good stuff, and I'd like to think that's because we're the better-informed, better-prepared folks so our samples are *undoubtedly* better, right? But I know four or five people (split over genres) who are very good writers applying to programs, who don't partake here online. In conclusion: we're doomed to speculate on the quality of other applicants, but that speculating's probably not very useful.
All the same: keep posting your speculation because I'm addicted to it.
And by 'Deux' I clearly mean 'Dreux', and betray my familiarity with French.
It is interesting to speculate. I wonder sometimes if the proliferation of writing programs has had the effect of bringing more high quality writers from the general populace into academic programs or whether it has just lowered the bar (and that's not meant negatively) for admissions in general.
Initially, I'm inclined to believe the former...then again I'm an optimist to a fault. :D
As with most things, the answer probably lies somewhere in between.
Even with the possibility of a big increase in applicant this year, there are two or three times as many programs as there were in the early 90s. It's not clear to me that it's harder to get into an MFA program now than it was then (holding the applicants talent/background as a constant).
Cheers!
Okay, first let me say that I'm just talking because I find this topic interesting. I am not trying to be depressing! Everyone has a great shot at getting in to these great schools. Plenty of people on this board WILL receive acceptances from great programs. Book it. So if you're reading this, it might be you.
@Dreux re: uncertainty
I don't think you have to be a great writer either. There are plenty of current and former MFA students who really aren't that great at writing yet. Or at least let me say, are not great writers. That's why a lot of slush pile readers complain about MFA'ers and why the vast majority of MFA'ers never launch wildly successful careers. But if that's the case, then now we really don't know anything about what's good and what's bad. How can we even define good and bad when it comes to art?
Uncertainty is hard to deal with, YES. I don't have to say that to this board, that's for sure. But uncertainty due to subjectivity is also liberating. If we understand that a lot of what's going to happen with the adcoms has to do with luck (getting the right reader at the right time), then we will not, and SHOULD not, get defeated if things don't turn out. Nor should we think we're the total shit if things do turn out.
re: taste
I can usually understand why other people like the stories that I don't like. I almost never hate a famous, well regarded story/collection/novel. I usually just shrug at it and say, "It has a good subject," or, "it has a good prose style," etc. I almost always say, I respect it even though I don't like it. There are sometimes when I can't understand why people like it, and it usually happens with experimental fiction. But when that happens, I'm incredibly thankful that people in the world do love that particular piece because there needs to be stuff out there that's not for everyone.
hi everyone...my first post of this season...my last post last year was extremely unpleasant, so i apologize for anyone who remembers...anyway, for a quick feel good story about the absolute random decisions of these schools...after i blew up at the end of mfa recruiting last spring, i received a wonderful email from an individual that i had never met or spoken to who informed me that in '08 he applied to 16 schools and got 0 acceptances...in '09, he decided to only apply to six, and he ended up accepted to four...the real kicker: he informed me he sent the EXACT SAME MANUSCRIPTS in with 0 changes...insanity is performing the same activity and expecting a different result...maybe we're just all insane
Slush pile readers frequently complain about MFA'ers? I believe it. I just know so little about writing contests and the like that I hadn't heard that before. Though I've certainly heard my fair share of jokes at MFA grads' expense.
oh, and this cat ended up at lsu...can't remember his name, so it worked out for him...it can work out for all of us as well.
Kaybay, I'm glad my rambling posts had a calming effect.
And yes, once we gain some perspective and look back at our anxiety it will induce some chuckles.
What you have now is important. Making money and having people to love you.
Unfortunately, I have neither of those things right now, so I need an MFA. (Just kidding.)
Oh, whoa, whoa, no one said I'm making money here! I'm a high school teacher! I'm just happy to have *a* job! ;)
That's a great story, LAswede.
Kaybay, you do know that high school teachers get paid way better than adjuncts, right? You're pursuing a degree to get a demotion. :)
i thought so...made me feel better anyway!
i'm with you kaybay...teacher here as well.
i can't complain though...it's a nice gig to have, especially here in north louisiana where employment is about as fruitful as the dodo population
Well, actually, I have given this much consideration. While I will most likely return to teaching high school, a Master's degree will give me far more options for what I teach (subject) and where I teach (the right school for me and my teaching philosophy). I will be a much more competitive applicant with a Master's degree, too. I will also get paid a little bit more. I can adjunct at night and hopefully work my way up to a full-time position at a college somewhere, it does happen, although rarely. Not having to work over the summer also gives me to time to write, so that's a perk too.
This is not a recommendation for teaching high school, by the way, it's not for everyone. In fact, I would not say that I enjoy it.
Hi all,
The question of talent (how many applicants have it, and to what extent) is definitely the most intriguing one for me. Enough to draw me out of my lurkage! It's so frustrating that there's no way of measuring the most important factor in this entire selection process.
My guess is that a tiny percentage of samples are utterly painful to read and a tiny percentage are startlingly original/brilliant/definite shoo-ins. The rest (95%??) probably ranges from alright to pretty bloody good. Which leaves me... exactly where I started. Speculating.
Oh, to be able to read the application materials submitted by Gary Shteyngart, Michael Chabon or Junot Diaz! Just the thought makes me feel tingly all over. Whose samples would be at the top of your list?
In solidarity,
BookMoth
one great thing about the master's is that you can teach full time at community colleges, and at most you can earn tenure...i teach at a cc now, and to be honest, it's pretty great. we make more than the university faculty in town, and i get to teach literature courses as well as comp. classes which is something that is not happening at a university when you only have your "lowly" master's!
@ Cate, re: life experience
I am really hoping that "life experience" doesn't factor too much into the decision process, because I basically have none yet. At least, I've never done any of those really interesting things that I hear other people talking about and think, "That's so fascinating." (Like backpacking across Europe or volunteering in third-world countries, you know.)
I guess that just looking at what I've done in life so far, someone might think it's boring. I'm quite young and my life so far, at least as it may appear, basically boils down to going to school, working a mixture of crappy and not-crappy part-time jobs, sitting around various places reading books (or alternately, sitting around with a bunch of people and talking about books), occasionally getting myself into uncomfortable messes (but quickly running away), imagining, and writing.
However, I think of "life experience" as not just the Big Events that happen to a person, but his/her daily experience of the world. Even if that experience consists of something seemingly boring, what matters to me is a person's way of being in the world & thinking about it. And in our case, distilling all of that into stories/poems/essays/etc. Poems, for me. I think that life is incredibly rich for writers, because of all our unique ways of seeing and reacting to the world around us, and reacting to the inexplicable fact of being in the world. In my case, I haven't "done" much, but I've thought, observed, and written a lot.
Ok, end ramble. Basically I mean that I hope the adcoms will read my writing sample and NOT think, "Wow, all this girl ever does is walk around towns and ride subways and look out windows and then write about it." I hope they'll share my opinion that all of that ordinary stuff and the richly specific details of everyday life are incredibly important. *shrug*
It'd be cool to read Chabon's fiction sample but I'd be more interested in his SOP. He has a very poised voice--very confident, but still approachable--and it'd be great to see if he arrived at his program fully formed (or how close to he was to where he is now).
It definitely seems like the MFA being the terminal degree in the field is slowly changing as far as even getting considered for full-time university positions (tenured or non-tenured). Of course, a strong publication record (top journals and/or a book) will get you jobs more than anything. But how many people (even from top programs) have books or a string of top tier journal publications fresh after graduation? (or ever) 1%? 2? Less? A PHD in anything sounds like a good idea for someone who is hell bent in staying in academia (Rhetoric PHDs are a lot more marketable than CW PHDs though). But It's been said many times - the MFA doesn't guarantee anything.
@Frankish re: the proliferation of MFA programs
I'm definitely no expert on this, but I think it's easier to get an MFA now than ever before. There are so many programs. I think it's important to remember that the supply is not driving the demand. The reason there are so many MFA programs is because there are so many people who want them. Thus, new ones keep popping up, and that's why the MFA has such a low value now.
However, I think it's probably harder to get into the really competitive schools now than before. With more and more people working their way toward MFAs, the samples have gotten much better. Plus, with everyone sending out multiple applications, schools like Iowa probably receive more applications than ever before.
Not an expert on this, just my thoughts.
It's really about the popularity of the MFA now.
Ahh, this is so exciting...just now discovered this blog and it is so nice to see that there are others out there who are as nervous, excited, and relieved to be done with the whole application process as I am! Good luck to everyone and congrats to those who have already heard back from places!! :)
@Bookmoth re:talent levels
I'm completely with you. I think it's a misconception that a lot of people have that the majority of the fiction being written out there is absolute garbage. Well, let me specify. The majority of the stuff being written is really bad, but the vast majority of the stuff that gets submitted is average.
It's not a triangle with the best at the peak and the garbage at the base. It's more like a diamond. A little brilliant, a little awful, and a whole lot of average in the middle.
Because of all the increased interest in MFA programs, I'd assume that there's going to be an increase in submissions to slush piles as well. As more ppl look to writing as a career (or at least as a vocation), we're going to see larger numbers of writers submitting their stuff. That is a good thing, I think, because it raises the quality of the journals and mags but it will also open more doors for non-MFA grads. That is, a writer will be able to get a job in academia based upon a solid and stellar publishing record instead of needing a degree and a few pubs here/there/wherever. As the journals get better--not just the big name ones, but the smaller ones too--writers will have more venues to publish good stuff and have more opportunities to develop a shiny CV.
Not to be the bearer of bad news, but I happen to know that the CNF at Ohio has notified too.
And I'm a fiction gal, so it wasn't for me. Just wanted to pass the information along.
Man, too many interesting conversations here ... I need to stop responding to everything. I'm getting tired.
@Laura re:life experience
I'm a poetry dummy, so I can only speak from a fiction point of view.
I completely agree with you. Interesting literary fiction, at least to me, is about unconventional perspectives on ordinary things. Unconventional perspectives because it's fresh and original. Ordinary things because we can all relate to them.
Just as you pointed out, a person does not need to have lived a life on the streets or in a foreign land or a foreign culture in order to have a fresh perspective. A person can just be extremely bright, or funny, or quirky, or just flat out be a terrific writer. There are other ways too. Writers can use techniques like ostranenie to shine new light on familiar events or people. Another great way to implement an unconventional perspective is to use magical realism or some other type of genre blending. There are lots of ways for people to stand out and show us new things. Because let's face it, as readers we're all looking to be startled.
However, having lived a different-than-the-norm kind of life is like having that unconventional perspective ready made with a certificate of authenticity. I think that's why a lot of adcoms like it.
Amazing distraction of the day:
Brad Neely's "Wizard People, Dear Reader," his dubbing of the first Harry Potter movie with some really hilarious stuff. You can see it on youtube in pieces or go to illegal-art.com to download the audio.
@the little poet who could
Wizard People, Dear Reader is an inspiration to us all. It is pure poetry.
"I am a beautiful animal! I am a destroyer of worlds! I am Harry F*cking Potter!"
SO much love.
Emily S, I'm applying to UNLV for poetry.
Gotbisco,
re: journals/submitting/jobs
That's assuming MFA students still want to be writers after going through a program. I'm sure many don't. Also, I know a few former MFAs that barely think about submitting anything at all, and I'm sure they aren't the only ones. I think most folks leave the idea of writing as a career and even publishing anything at the door when they graduate. That's why I think it's b.s. when people attack MFA programs for ruining contemporary literature. Like anything in life, it's the survival of the fittest. But you make a good point about MFAs giving life to literary journals (and in turn the small press). More MFA programs means more journals and that means more opportunities for the cream to rise to the top in an already insanely competitive field.
@GotBisco
"That is, a writer will be able to get a job in academia based upon a solid and stellar publishing record instead of needing a degree and a few pubs here/there/wherever"
I'm not so sure about this esp. if you are talking about creative writing positions. Universities like "team players" and MFAs are sort of like the Mutant brother hiding in the basement. Does the Mutant brother do tricks? (translation: Pushcart, O. Henry, National Book Award - name your poison). Well, maybe just maybe he can come out to play.
. . . in other words, what chance does someone with no credential have? The academic job market in the humanities is just getting bleaker. One of my fav. professors in college had to leave despite his popularity (he was an Iowa alum) due to cut backs. He eventually came back but not as part of the administrative staff (and not a teacher). Some schools are eliminating departments like philosophy and classics completely. Just the way things are going unfortunately.
Gotbisco, I kind of agree with WT here. I think it makes sense that, being so competitive already, the rise in applicants will do wonders for the literary world. What's cool about it too is that, because actual "literary" writing has such a small following (ie, compared to like Twilight fans), the competition is going to only increase, not decrease. Because demand is much lower for "good" writing, as unquantifiable and biased as that may sound, it will never reach the point (like music has, for instance), where there are thousands of shitty writers who make millions and have great, meaning successful based on sales, careers, while the rest of the good ones get stuck with being starving artists.
I guess what I'm trying to say, in short, is that there may be a few Fall Out Boys and Green Days out there for the writing world, but the oportunity will be there to squeeze the fruit of the best writers around into 100% juice.
Sorry for the random metaphors.
Also, I don't think that writers will EVER be able to go off writing cred. to teach. Maybe at J-Cols or other very small institutions, but they are ALWAYS going to want at least a little teaching experience. I'm a big advocate for teachers knowing what they are talking about (ie I hate education degrees because you spend more time learning BS teaching techniques instead of what you are supposed to teach), but at the same time, they have to know what they are doing.
Little poet, I respectfully disagree about the publication vs. teaching experience issue. Sure, certain programs (UNCG, I've heard) are rigorous in assessing a potential hire's teaching and workshop-leading abilities. But I'm also hard pressed to think of a program that wouldn't gladly give Thomas Pynchon a post, even if he's never taught a class.
Cheers!
Frankish, but I thought we were talking about people who were new, or at least newish, to the whole writing world. Everyone knows who Thomas Pynchon is, and you would be hard-pressed to find someone who didn't respect his writing at least, much less the majority of which I would assume recognize him (as Harold Bloom does, not that I'm huge on HB, just saying), that Pynchon is one of the five most important writers of the 20th century.
I kind of get what you're saying, but I think if Pynchon came to almost ANY school and said, guys, I'm broke. I canz teach herez? They might even fire someone to make room.
But take, I don't know, a more immediate example. Seth Abramson? I mean, even with his (many) publications, his blog, his rankings, and his collection, I think you would be hard-pressed to find a nationally-known school to just outright accept him on writing cred. alone. That's all I'm saying.
@ Mostly Swell:
Uh, I'm fully aware that Virginia is not in the Midwest. I was merely mentioning the places I applied to that would be a cool change of scenery from where I've lived in the past.
Frankish,
Obviously Pynchon and his ilk would probably be given concessions but they are exceptions. And just because someone is a great writer doesn't mean that they would do any kind of good for students. They could be a complete jack ass. If you look at job postings for any kind of teaching position, the qualifications are pretty clear. CW positions at the tenure track level aren't exactly common. The same could even be said about temporary/contractual positions. The people applying for these jobs that have a fighting chance are all going to be well-published (seeing that this is usually also a requirement), but why is a department going to hire a well-published jackass when they could hire a well-published dedicated teacher?
I was joking with the Thomas Pynchon bit...guess I should have used an emoticon of some sort. :P
But I do think that publication often trumps teaching experience, as there are other benefits a well-known writer can bring a program such as alumni support/funding, prestige in recruiting students, etc.
Yeah, but a university generally doesn't hire a straight non-teacher sort. And by generally I mean almost never do they hire non-teachers. So maybe you're meaning publishing is like a flush while having both teaching and pub. creds are like a straight flush, the pubs. maybe being the straight part.
Does anyone else sometimes feel like a schizophrenic when you read/think about this comment section.
I just imagine a group of MFA apps sitting by themselves, rocking back and forth, mumbling expected notification dates, acceptance rates, random names of authors, names of programs, titles of stories.
"Grummdnnnenn...Last year... Oh-eight... Iowa... Iowa City... Uni of Iowa... notified by phone on February twenty five... twenty five... twenty five is five times five... five plus five is ten... I applied to ten schools... Florida... Mickey Mouse... Arizona... Wallace... Foster... David... ASU... grummdmmm.... Brown... one percent... experiment... "Everything that rises".... "Everything"... "Converge"... "Everything that rises".... "must"... "Converge"....grumdmdhhdmm...
@pencore - Ha! Where did you get a copy of my SOP?
Or was that my writing sample? I'm so frazzled I can't remember anything anymore....
Pencore, are you watching me? Kind of creepy. I've actually kept away from this blog a lot for the past few days. Kind of got depressed by not hearing from Bama or OSU. Yes, I know it's not over. I hate being patient. haha
Yeah. Reading about fractal time on Wikipedia does not help with the feeling schizophrenic thing.
"According to Terence McKenna, who conceived the idea over several years in the early-mid 1970s while using psilocybin mushrooms and DMT, the universe has a teleological attractor at the end of time that increases interconnectedness, eventually reaching a singularity of infinite complexity in 2012, at which point anything and everything imaginable will occur instantaneously."
I gotta get off the interwebs.
Stranger Hi,
I got to know this from someone teaching at Iowa - the apps have doubled this year and so they are still sorting out apps. The first level of sorting is happening it's only after this will they then start the next level of narrowing it down...
I'm watching ya'll. Obviously.
If ya'll ever wonder what it would be like to be a creative writing student who also moonlights as a battle rapper, check this out at 4:38 to see your battle opponent call you out on it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJXPWr6hY4s
Need some advice - I'm not your typical MFA student - that is to say that I don't have a literary undergrad degree but I write fiction. Pacific University needs a critical analysis. Maximum of three pages exploring some aspect of or element of craft in a literary work. Guys I've not done this before just needed some tips on starting it....thanks so much everyone - this blog has been a support system for me...
Nefrettiti,
I have a very hard time believing that Iowa applications have "doubled," but I don't doubt that they are up. Did your source actually imply that there were 2400 applications this year?
Nef,
Check out this site for essay tips: http://www.peterturchi.com/resources.html
Pencore, I almost switched it off because that guy introducing is a total tool, but that was hilarious.
little poet,
Trust the pencore and you shall be awarded.
Ha! ;)
haha. i'm going to have to limit my watching of that. it makes me think of rhyme, and i hate writing rhyming poetry
WOWOWOWOOWOW i just got home from work and found 200 new comments, including Tory's. Is anyone else who applied in fiction to OSU totally effing bummed out like CRAZY? I am so glad to be able to commiserate. I'm having one of those "wont-get-in-anywhere" days. Hopefully it will pass.
mj, i applied for poetry, and i'm hoping the latter as well.
Nef--
If you want examples of critical samples, I'm sure the wonderful folks on this blog would be happy to pass them along, myself included.
Nef,
My critical sample is a literary analysis, so it might not be the most helpful for what you are writing, but if you don't even know where to start, it might help. Let me know.
@Laura about life experience:
I can totally relate to everything you're saying. While I actually have had a lot of traumatic emotional life experience and some travel, I can't compete with a 30 year old in terms of quantity of experience. However, like you said, it's the quality of the experience that matters. You can go through everything in the world and not absorb or appreciate it, but as writers we do that on a daily basis.
Here's a quick question that will probably be much more relevant in a couple of months:
Assuming that you haven't been accepted anywhere (yet), how long do you wait until you contact a school to see if you're on the wait-list or if you've been rejected???
I'm thinking like late March, right?
I understand the reasoning behind some schools sending out late rejections; but it sure makes the whole process much more stressful for the applicants...
Michael, last year I can't remember anyone calling the school to ask about being waitlisted. The chances are, unless your mail takes forever to get there, you should wait until hearing from them, because you will hear about a decision they make either way. Once you've gotten your stuff to them, it sucks, but there's nothing else poractive you can really do to speed up an adcom, or others deciding over admission. They'll let you know.
Am I the only one freaking this much already? I must be. I'm in a weird transitional stage as it is (getting married in July and moving to where she lives because she teaches and I don't work full time or have my insurance through work-irony is I still make more money than her), so with just hearing so far that acceptances at UA and OSU went out, I'm looking up alteratives, or as I like to call them, "wtf am i gonna do now in this gdmfing economy" scenarios. It's only February first; calm down, I tell myself. Yeah, good try.
Hi Ashley,
Just did the math - I'm told Iowa usually gets 650 to 750 apps this year it is 1300..so not double but quite an increase...
Nef, Iowa got 1209 applications last year total (http://sethabramson.blogspot.com/2010/01/2010-mfa-rankings-selectivity_26.html), so not sure what you're referring to. Maybe just in fiction?
Totally loved the philosophizing that was going on earlier in the comments!
re: chances. For those of us who actually post here isn't it encouraging that a few of us have been accepted already? Doesn't it seem statistically impossible for everyone who posts comments to be completely shut out? Maybe it's the eternal optimist in me but I think simply by being a part of this community we increase our chances? Any mathematicians out there to confirm this?
Stay positive guys!! We will make it happen.
I couldn't sleep at all last night, and in a few minutes I have to go to work and pretend everything's OK because no one there knows about my MFA hopes.
Tory's news about OSU completely depressed me last night. I know it's not hopeless yet, as I'm sure there will be a waitlist, but the resulting sleepless night made me realize I should stay away from this blog and from TSE for a while. I think my precarious emotional state will probably be better served if I can pretend that most of my schools haven't notified anyone yet, so that I can feel there's no reason to worry.
Ugh. Best of luck to everyone here, and I'll probably be back in a few weeks. It's been wonderful to know I'm not the only one freaking out - you guys are great, and I'm very thankful for you and this blog.
Sooooooo, after the somewhat confusing email we all received from wisconsin, would it be bad if I called them because their site says I'm missing one of my rec letters?
@phillywriter - For what it's worth, I feel your pain. I'm thankful to Tory and the acceptees, who let us know what's really going on in the process. But the news that acceptance notifications have gone out is always a tough blow to those of us who don't receive them. It's the curse of applying to early notifiers like Alabama or OSU -- odds are, people like us will get bad news before we get good news. But it doesn't mean we'll never get any good news! I'm just trying to keep that in mind. And as many others have said, there's always the chance we'll hear good news from an early notifier later. Good luck to you! (You probably won't even read this, though.)
@Emily - I've applied to UNLV! I'm interested in their international focus in a foreign-speaking country because I would like to spend some time in Italy translating Giuseppe Ungaretti. Many of his poems have been translated into English, but I don't think any of his complete collections have been translated. At least, there are currently none in print.
Judging from people's comments about Johns Hopkins in an earlier thread, though, it sounds like maybe the UNLV's requirement to do at least one semester abroad in a foreign speaking country might put people off. Maybe?
I've also applied to the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) because it is a fully bilingual program, in Spanish and English, that accepts applicants from the US and from Latin America. I'm a poet who doesn't really love writing fiction in English but, for some reason, I truly love writing fiction in Spanish! I can't explain it. I've tried to write poetry in Spanish and it's just terrible, never ever good. But I love writing stories in Spanish, so I feel like maybe my weird blend of interests might be uniquely suitable for UTEP. Maybe?
I haven't seen anybody else, in these forums, apply to UTEP. I thought maybe it could be because their funding is irregular, not everybody is guaranteed a TAship and tuition isn't waived even for TAs. Or maybe because isn't on any Kealy/Abramson lists -- or anybody else's lists. Or maybe the close border with Chihuahua scares people. UTEP doesn't have a language test that students have to pass, but maybe the presence of two languages is intimidating to potential applicants(?) The instructors seem to be highly accomplished, fascinating people from the US and Latin America. And although I don't love everything in the Rio Grand Review, I like the type of work it publishes. It seems to be right up my alley.
To be clear, I like writing fiction in English, but I don't love what I write in English. For some reason, I do love the fiction I write in Spanish.
Ok this may be a kind of self promotion, but I think it also doubles as a Monday morning distraction from waiting for the phone to ring.
http://tinyurl.com/yzslqb8
I have years and years of journals (maybe some of you do too-- i feel like some writers are into them, some aren't) but in a moment of self-deprecation last year I started posting them and dissecting/making fun of them online.
No, I did not use these as my manuscripts for applications... but I'm gonna be honest, I probably should have. I think I might have done my most honest/creative/incisive writing back in 1994.
My boyfriend got into SAIC for his MFA in Performance! Is it weird that I'm using this to feel the vicarious thrill of acceptance?
I must say, at the least, it's cool to have a fun backup: if I get flat-out rejected everywhere, I can at least follow him to Chicago, one of my very favorite cities.
He is being very prudent about his decision, of course, as he still hasn't event SENT all of his applications, but still...CHICAGO!
I hope all of you find a cool distraction like this! It's a good thing to forget about yourself for a while.
Oh my god that post rambled. If I get in anywhere, yinz will see some serious rambling.
@DigAPony
oops! sorry. I misunderstood your post.
Cheers!
Vicarious congrats goin' out to Adam.
@Trilbe -
I'm guessing you already know this, but just in case you don't, NYU has a Spanish language MFA program:
http://cwspanish.as.nyu.edu/page/mfaprogram
Trilbe,
I applied to UTEP. It's my wild-card program. Also to UNLV (I'd pursue the Peace Corps option if I went there) and to Hopkins (probably my top choice as of now).
Language requirements don't scare me off. To me they indicate an interesting and open-minded approach to crafting an MFA curriculum.
@BookMoth - Thank you so much for this information! I've applied to NYU, but I didn't know about NYU's Spanish-language MFA until now. This program makes NYU even more attractive to me, because I would love to have the opportunity to take creative writing workshops with Latin American MFA students!
My research wasn't as thorough as I thought it was -- I didn't discover UTEP's program until two weeks ago, I'm ashamed to admit. I really did go through the entire AWP list, school by school, when I began putting together my list but I somehow missed the info about UTEP being bilingual or I read it and forgot about it. How did I do that?!
Assuming I get accepted somewhere, I'd hoped to take creative writing classes in the Spanish department, to continue reading and writing Spanish fiction. And I hope to continue translating Ungaretti, whether or not I get to do it in Italy.
?Hablas espanol, Book Moth? Si quieras intercambiar sus cuentos con mi, me gusta eso.
Trilbe,
I took a look at El Paso and considered it, but I decided against it because of both funding and the fact that my Spanish isn't good enough. They do say it isn't a requirement, but I know there will be stories and discussions going on in Spanish. I don't think I'd be able to follow for at least the first year. It sounds like a waste of precious time if you aren't fully bilingual, though you'll certainly be gaining in the area of language comprehension if nothing else.
UNLV, on the other hand, I did end up applying to. In fact, it is ALMOST secretly my number one choice is some ways. I'm really excited about the international and translation aspect. I would plan to go to Argentina where I'd feel better about expanding my spanish than I would in El Paso. When I was younger, I always wanted to go into the Peace Corps, but I've become jaded about anything run by government and I've heard too many stories of covered up assaults, not to mention what happened after Deborah Gardner died. I've just become too cynical, though a part of me really still wants to do it.
Does anyone know if Iowa is one of those schools that contacts you if you're missing transcripts or letters (aka the things that can't be confirmed by getting back the self-addressed postcard)?
Yikes. February 1st and our comments have turned into a blended smoothie of raucous anxiety and philosophy. :) I'm very nervous. Yesterday I would have told you that I couldn't wait for February 1, today I just feel like I'm now waiting for mid-March.
On the talent level of applicants: I had been assuming that like 10% of the samples to any program might be crap, but that a good 30-40% might just be bad fits for the program. Right? I mean, surely a lot of people apply places where their writing may not gel with that of the department... and thus also get a pretty quick toss in the bin... I don't know, I suppose we ARE all being a little overanalytical.
In the interest of optimism:
Yes, we have a better chance because we're on this blog (why do you think I came out of lurkdom? For the very real increase in my chances. :)) I do believe that hearing people's stories about app failure followed by success in a year or so is VERY reassuring... I'm also applying for high school teaching jobs this year, so that's my plan B. Kaybay, why so down on the high school teaching?
Oh, and on movie adaptations... I'm reading Forrest Gump right now. Waaaayyy different from the movie in some ways. Is anyone else finding it hard to sit and read "booklist" fiction, like super-literary, with their application(s) out there? I find myself burrowing in my fluff, pulp-fiction because I cannot shut off the "How good is this? How good was my sample? Where do I stand?" rant that starts when I try picking up Chekhov or Barthelme, for example.
Yikes.
Thought some of you might be interested; John McNally's new book, "After the Workshop" looks great. Just in case we need to get any more meta.
Here's what Kirkus says about it:
"McNally enthusiastically rakes the literary profession over the coals in his cutting fictional biography of Jack Hercules Sheahan, once a wunderkind of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a New Yorker–published writer with great potential and even greater opportunities. The novel smartly picks up Jack’s story a decade after his well has run dry, as he subsists by ushering famous and not-so-famous writers to their hotels, bookstore readings and many, many bars… A ribald deconstruction, packed with literary in-jokes, of an industry in love with its own absurdities."
Available on Amazon now
@ Marinara- have you checked your status on ISIS? It doesn't list recommendations, but it does list transcripts and GRES and stuff. I found out they didn't get my transcripts by checking it; no one emailed me or anything.
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