Jetamio

Fiction. The application volumes for fiction, for whatever reason, are particularly hideous . For example, one of the MFA programs, Syracuse, received 600 fiction applications and 177 poetry applications for 2015, though they only accept 6 of each. And my list seems long, but because all of them have acceptance rates like Syracuse, which is 1% for fiction - and they're not even considered one of the top 10 workshops in the country -- I could still very easily end up empty handed again. But... not focusing on that now... onward!!.. i guess.

My story: I applied for MFA programs in fall 2009 -- during the Great Recession when the economy was exploding and everyone and their mother had gotten laid off. I applied to Michener, Iowa, Cornell, NYU, Johns Hopkins, Brown, and Irvine. I got into none of them. It doesn't seem like a huge surprise to me now, but at the time my recommenders were saying things like "you're a more mature writer than I was when I got into Iowa." For all the people who think numbers matter: my GPA was 3.91 from Berkeley and my GRE was in the 99th percentile. The numbers don't mean doodly squat. I was so devastated - not just from the rejections but from not being able to find any kind of job and also getting dumped by my then-boyfriend for my failures - that I got very, very ill and had to fly back and live at home for a while. Many, many, many formative life events happened after that. I worked as a reporter on Wall Street for several years. I toughened up. And I'm coming back to this now, applying for 16 programs instead of my foolish 7 from before. I'm still working on the writing sample. I want it to be perfect. And I have something to prove to myself about how far I've come. I'm debating whether to join that facebook group. It seems like a bad idea, and I don't want to absorb any noise that might make me fragile. I warmly wish everybody the very best of luck. They're not judging us, they're judging our applications!