tonydoesmovie

So, tomorrow is the day. For everyone already accepted, congratulations. To those on waitlists, also congratulations. Let us all remember that whether our acceptance was last year, is this year, or will be next year, we are all in this together. Support and learn from one another in our successes and failures. For those of us sitting in a heap of rejections, let us learn from our mistakes and from the mistakes of those that were successful. Seek guidance and do your best at not letting jealousy breed in your heart. We are all in this together. Our failure today was the same failure of others last season. Support, love, and be kind. We are all in this together.

@Curious53 I think acceptance and quirkiness extends just before unicycling or pogo-sticking to class. As others have said, if this is your preference, do you. If you have a killer set of Moon Shoes, do that. Do what makes you happy as long as it isn't at the detriment of others.

I'm not a woman, let alone a successful one, but men that are intimidated by successful women are probably not the best candidates to have a relationship with in the first place. Attraction is attraction, it shouldn't be qualified by the subjectivity of success.

Also, if any are interested, Chicago Tribune runs a crime tracker on their site here. Full of great breakdowns and maps so that those of us unfamiliar with the area can try to better understand the onslaught of neighborhoods around beautiful Chicago. It also helps to destigmatizes (or rather put in perspective) the "unsafe" and "dangerous" tag Chicago often receives. As a Baltimore native, I can greatly appreciate this.

Going to be moving here in the summer, been looking in the Hyde Park area. I immediately bookmarked Hyde Park Produce and sent it to my wife with that review.

I am planning to pay as well. I was in a similar boat as well of applying to a few funded programs and a few unfunded. I've only been accepted into full-res programs without funding. I'm hoping to secure a few scholarship offers from the schools as well as tuition remission opportunities from TA and/or GA-ships. Also, I will look to applying the hell out of external scholarship opportunities. Outside of that, I will be dependent upon financial aid - I'm 26 with just under $15k debt from undergrad.

@oc.bmjc I was going to "quote" your response, but having it's length repeated in this forum would be an abusive use of the quote, IMO. I am very much of your thinking (as far as I can tell). There is a bit of "do I belong with these people?" when you see the portrayed caliber of Draft folks. And this is me, a straight, white, cis male feeling excluded. I can only imagine how others from minority and marginalized groups feel. Furthermore, as a person lacking diversity, I wondered if my "majority" status would put my applications in jeopardy, however, I came to the realization that it is the quality of work above all else, not the writer themselves behind the pen. I'm working on a piece I'd like to submit to something like MFA Years to reach out to those people, like your friend, because I, too, don't have any undergrad pedigree. I attended a local state school and graduated with a degree in film (more or less). I don't have any published work. And, I only found out about creative writing MFA's around Jan/Feb of 2016, only starting to research and take the idea seriously by summer and beginning to actually write and bring to life ideas that'd been dancing in my head around October. In that time, I looked for information to help guide me, but what was there? Endless material about how to organize publications on your CV (of which I had no CV), which fully-funded program was right for your novel (of which I had no novel), and forums and blogs about people that'd been accepted to schools who had been writing since they were in utero, sold a book by 15, been named poet of the year by Poets Anonymous (probably not a real thing), how to write about "insert diverse background here" in your portfolio and SoPs (again, obscenely white), and so on and so forth. So where was that information about cats like me that had only recently realized that an MFA was the culmination of things (writing, teaching) that they wanted to be doing? I couldn't find it and it sounds like Draft and other resources aren't being properly used to speak to these individuals, like your friend, because only the cream rises to the top on the internet. And to hell with the cream: I applied to eight schools, I've been rejected by 3 outright, 1 is an assumed rejection, 3 have decided I was acceptable, and I'm still waiting to hear back from one school. So it can be done if you aren't the creme de la creme of writers on the eastern seaboard. It can be done if you have a BS degree from a BS institution. It can be done if you find yourself in a disadvantaged existence with little to no time to write, little to no money to pay app fees, and little to no aptitude to write, because I have. And others have, too. You just don't hear about them because they aren't the first to gloat and yell, "Look at me, what I've done, and how great I am!" We are, however, sitting in a cold, dark room, rocking back and forth, in the fetal position, wondering how long we can "fake it until we make it."

@outflare The basic FB group mindset:

I woke up to a rejection from the University of Victoria - not totally unexpected as they admit one student (as far as my understanding went) per discipline AND, even though my state is in a state of emergency, a call reminding me I had to be at work. So let's take @Scheherazade's positivity and keep moving forward. As @aridari stated, Draft is a bit too "perfect" so to disrupt that, I'll be posting my rejections from Oregon State and UVic in a few short moments, not for sympathy, to remind people they aren't the only ones met with adversity. Let's keep on keeping on, ya'll.

When you say "everyone" warns you about the Baltimore crime rates, who are they? I'm not here to be a Baltimore crime-apologist, but I'm irked as a resident when people make claims without properly sourced information. Baltimore is like any major city: there are areas and pockets of crime, and varying levels of crime within those areas. Familiarity with the area helps guide where one should or should not go. A sweeping generalization from someone like my dad, whose father was a police captain for years in Baltimore no less, who says things like, "Why would you go there? Are you looking to get shot?" Well, no, because I stay out of those areas as best I can. And yes, even in the good areas, there is crime, but again, that is any major metro area.

That, or a laid-back demeanor relative to that of the empirical hustle-and-bustle that the northeast exhibits.

Quick shout-out to everyone in the northeast, who is about to be clobbered by snow, waiting for program letters via snail mail that may possibly be delayed in an already drawn out notification process #thoughtsandprayers

Would love to hear others insights on this as well. Draft may be a good resource from seasoned folk. In my opinion, if I were given that decision to make (and I hope we all are given that burden) I would state how thankful and appreciative I am of the opportunity, how nice my points of contact have been to work with, and how lovely the school is, however, at this time, I feel like a school (I would not name them) has presented me with what I feel is the best opportunity for me and that I have chosen to accept their offer of admission. Again, I would endlessly thank them for acceptance and kindness and wish them and their new cohort all the best.

If I have to sell my body, and in this economy, there isn't much demand for it, then that is what I will do. I have work experience at university already, so hopefully that would translate well. UBC and Guelph-Humber offer a bit of funding per semester to students. From there, I'd want to utilize TA- and GA-ships, scholarships, etc. Also, relative to other non-fully funded programs in the US, their credit cost per hour and tuition by semester are steals compared to their US counterparts (yes, even converting for Canadian Dollars).

The programs seemed to offer a greater variety to areas of study. Having a diverse catalog of courses was important to me. For example, University of Guelph-Humber offered a drama course in conjunction with fiction, University of British Columbia offers stageplay, TV writing, and writing for children/ YA workshops along with their fiction workshops, and University of Victoria had an elective within film and TV structure. I'm really interested in having a well-rounded (for me) education. Beyond that, two of the programs allowed me to submit a screenplay in my portfolio. Most selfishly, Toronto and Vancouver are hubs for film and comedy, and I wanted to be in art communities where comedy, film, and writing intersected and collided magnificently, outside of the traditional UCLA/USC routes.

And the same to you!

I'm not sure! I've been checking the MFA Years Notifications and the University of Victoria is the only one on the list and they have sent out their non-fiction acceptance - I applied to fiction.

I feel you there. I'm waiting to hear back from four, three are Canadian universities, and the anticipation of that first domino falling is crushing, at best.

I was debating to put this in the 'Decisions, Decisions' thread, but felt that fellow MFA-ers would have a better sense of the question I'm trying to ask and the information I think would be helpful to many. Let's say you've been accepted into a program that does not fully fund every student; what sort of questions should one ask in regards to getting SOME sort of funding? In certain situations, I'm sure zero funding is quite possible. However, what questions should a prospective student be asking about TA-ships, GA-ships, other funding opportunities? In regards to TA-ships, what questions should be asked about tuition remission, course loads, etc? Please feel free to contribute more in-depth questions as I feel this conversation is a good one to have even before applying to programs. These should be questions that, those of us unable to access the creme de la creme programs, can ask to get the best idea of our individual "fit" in a program.

I have reached out via e-mail to all my LoR writers, thanking them for all their help (an actual thank-you card will follow, preferably once I've been accepted into programs), and asking if there is a charity or organization that is near to their heart that I could make a donation to in their honor.

This has been my first app cycle, but I could not agree more on this. I would've been infinitely lost to all the figures, facts, and information I was uncovering. I started by handwriting all of the programs that interested me from a larger pool, then, after breaking that number down, I added all the schools to a Google Spreadsheet which I color-coded along with the infinite amount of information I grabbed from various websites. Once I had narrowed down the list to tens of schools I was considering to apply to, I made Google Sheets for each school, wrote up graduate requirements, faculty I was interested in, impressions about my feelings for each school and program, and everything I would need for my application. All these things played a major part in my SoP's and essays.

Hello all. Just wanted to stop in and introduce myself to the forum. I found the forum back in the Fall of '16 and told myself that it would be a good community to bond with while applications are being sent out and as the post-application doldrums roll through. Clearly I did not live up to my end of my bargain to join, contribute, and support earlier, so I hope to now, and in the future, be a courteous, helpful member to all. I have enjoyed reading all the support between members in our successes and our failures. I think it's important to recognize the motivating factor that rejection can be. Success has never really motivated someone into doing great things, but failure always has. Remember that in our trying times. Stick together. Continue doing great things and success will eventually follow. In stepping off my soapbox, I have received my first rejection letter - from Oregon State at Corvallis, a long shot in even the best case of scenarios. But, I am still waiting to hear back from 7 other schools, including: University of British Columbia, University of California - Riverside, Chapman University, Columbia College Chicago, University of Guelph, Roosevelt University, and University of Victoria. I look forward to reading more and more success stories as the acceptances begin rolling in. Until then!

How were the Land Rovers?