defmaybe

Officially accepted my offer at Berkeley! Yeesh. Congrats to everybody

Columbia, to my understanding, is similar to its peers in this sense. Funding packages are pre-packaged (as in predetermined across its accepted student population), and knowing the figure (have multiple friends in that program/living in the city myself) it is difficult to cut it in NYC on that stipend. There are opportunities for on-campus employment for grad students, though, and you'll make it work if its what you want. it's partly a matter of accepting that our stipends, no matter how prestigious the program, are not what they can/should be! If you do contact them, though, I'd do it by phone or in person, and lead with confidence!

Thanks guys! I am leaning towards Berkeley for many of the reasons you both touch on, but my myriad pro/con lists are still largely unedited right now. The various precarities - financial, creative, etc. - of both programs make the decision an especially hairy one -- "which form of financial insecurity is best for me?!" Lol. I hope to find the time to work on my writing if I decide to go down the PhD route, and it's interesting to talk to people (at Berkeley and elsewhere) who went for their PhD after the MFA. It's a fickle thing thinking about desire on all these levels, especially between two pretty incomparable opportunities, both of which mean leaving New York City, where I've lived this whole time. Lots to think about & hopefully my visit to Berkeley for the admitted students weekend will shed some light. It's funny, too, how aggressively these places try to recruit their admitted students, assuming that I've also gotten into Duke, Yale, etc. It's like, "um no, I'm literally choosing between living in the place of a likely apocalyptic earthquake or a remote cornfield for the next X years. It's like that." Anyway! I appreciate your thoughtful responses & apologize if I've hijacked the thread with my peculiar situation. Also, congrats to @punctilious on your partner's acceptance and decision! I really wanted to apply to Harvard but couldn't get that second essay shaped up in time. Will he work with Steph Burt? The faculty there (duh) is pretty great, and it does seem like the department skews toward creative writing in some interesting ways. Congrats to everyone for dealing with this toilsome process!

Hey internet. I have the lucky and weird problem of choosing between an English PhD program (UC Berkeley) and an MFA program (Iowa Writers Workshop). Both programs were my top choices in their respective tracks, great funding packages and pros/cons from both sides, visits forthcoming, etc. Has anyone come to a similar MFA/PhD impasse, and how did you decide? Any experiences/biases would be welcome. Thank you!

i was admitted to berkeley about two weeks ago with notification of funding and visit weekend dates. it might be best to assume that barring another round of offers, the department is done w their process this year. chins up everyone