Starbuck420
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Posts posted by Starbuck420
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12 minutes ago, chrisclements said:
Then again, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to just lie to the adcom folks.
I think you're right that the best thing to do in these scenarios is just to be honest, which is what you seem to have done, so, good work. IMO, in addition to just being a bad idea, it's also actually very hard to convincingly lie to these people (either directly or by omission) about what you like to read and what inspires you.
It's also true that the tenured professors who read these applications tend to be (unfortunately) much more conservative than most applicants, so I think your average tenured prof is probably going to have, honestly, a slightly less unfavorable view of DFW than many of us have. Obviously there are exceptions to this rule, but ask anyone in any sort humanities or arts discipline: the tenured profs belong to a different class than the rest of us, and as a result tend to have different priorities11 minutes ago, chrisclements said:lit crit guy
also, can I ask: what do you mean by this? I think we're all familiar with the guy in your mfa type (already mentioned quite recently in the thread I think) but I'm sure if this is something distinct from that or what
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12 minutes ago, Boomer not Ok said:
Blood Meridian
I get that it's bro lit on some level, but I agree. I don't think that Bukowski is remotely Cormac's peer in the bro canon
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36 minutes ago, Ydrl said:
Received a piece of mail from SJCNY and got really confused and hopeful about an acceptance, but no. It was just to let me know that as of the 8th, they hadn’t received some things. I just submitted on the 6th.
yikes -- so, so weird that they would do this by mail in 2021
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2 hours ago, mrvisser said:
Haven't seen any other acceptances to Vandy. Seems odd, but I guess it's entirely possible that the other five writers accepted don't use Gradcafe or Draft.
they also sent their English PhD notifications a few days ago. frequently there is no relation between the two, but sometimes (for example at Ohio St) CW and English notifications will go out simultaneously or almost simultaneously. so, that would also point to the Draft acceptance being real
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19 minutes ago, jp212 said:
on a separate note, how often do the admins for the draft group review requests to join....just curious
I am no longer in but I believe they screen the requests pretty closely in order to weed out faculty (?)
so, I think it takes a while. I also think it's just one person
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On 2/9/2021 at 9:08 PM, TheorySchmeory said:
I should also note that tons of European English MA programs
live the dream (by which I mean my personal dream, lol) of the German philology or English MA
here I am about 60% serious. There are lots of probably very obvious reasons why you shouldn't go to Germany for a degree in English (brace yarselves for some unsolicited advice):- German lecturers and professors are typically more distant and might not write great LORs
- Obviously, if you don't speak German, you're probably going to feel very isolated
- You won't get a TAship to cover living expenses, and there legal limits on the number of hours you can work with on a student visa
- More importantly, you probably won't be able to find work if in the first place without some German proficiency
That said, there are a few reasons why it would be good idea. Namely:
- No tuition
- Actually quite a wide selection of English-taught MA degrees in or directly adjacent to our discipline
- You could quite conceivably force yourself to learn German, which would be seriously valuable. Most of the time, you need an immersion experience in another language in order to use it in serious academic work, and this could qualify as such an experience
- This is a stupid reason to do it, but Germany is cool. Living there could alter your general outlook and/or career trajectory
The commenter above mentioned "European" MAs, but I've talked exclusively about German MAs here because they're the only ones that are tuition free for international students. The other popular destination for these sorts of degrees is the UK, and, imo, don't bother. Those degrees are going to be crazy expensive for Americans, and not worth your time unless you have a cool 60-70k USD to spare, or can magically get a Fulbright
Anyway, the German MA is something I almost did but then for various reasons chose not to do, which means that I am now forever burdened with this (completely useless, at least to me personally) knowledge of German MAs from an international perspective. So, there you have it.
- kitties and TheorySchmeory
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5 minutes ago, mrvisser said:
One of my best friends went to Maryland (for astrophysics) and loved it. Very nice area with a lot going on, and also kind of an expensive place to live.
Just my ~ highly subjective ~ opinion but having lived in the area for years I kinda despise college park lol. People I know who go to UMD like their programs a lot and certainly it's a great school, but many of them live in DC or nearby suburbs, and, yeah, pay a huge amount of money to live in tiny rooms in group houses and frequently have not insignificant commutes to campus. I was thinking that if I ever applied and got in there (almost certainly not something I would ever have to worry about) I might live in Baltimore and drive there. It's like 45 mins without traffic but I think your overall quality of life could be higher than it would be living in a ~ cool~ DC neighborhood, or in the area immediately around UMD. Takoma Park is also nice
Anyway lol not trying to discourage anyone from applying to UMD. more airing my grievances against DC I guess
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14 minutes ago, feralgrad said:
they still matter
sure, not saying they don't matter, just pointing out that they are probably not worth obsessing over to the point that they are usually obsessed over
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you're hearing it more and more, folks: the SOP might only barely matter. Seeing a UMass admit in Draft claim that she started her SOP the day it was due
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3 hours ago, pattycat said:
I also wonder if it's because FSU's app fee is only $30 and it had a late deadline.
Ooooo I didn't know this. gotta assume that this contributed to those crazy numbers
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5 hours ago, mrvisser said:
The person who got in said FSU this year received twice as many applicants as normal.
makes sense, I guess, and this is certainly what we've all been told to expect this year, but it's interesting to me because Illinois (the only other school to release this info yet, afaik) reported many fewer applications than usual. ofc, the sample size is currently 2 so it's possible Illinois is just an anomaly, but it's also possible that the ruined economy is wreaking havoc with the numbers, rather than increasing the number of applications all across the board. but, again, too early to tell
- jujubee, CayceCamus, largeheartedboy and 1 other
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11 hours ago, fishfish24 said:
Honestly, I had the hardest time finding info on Brown, so I could be in the wrong....
because no one gets in lol
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18 minutes ago, M-Lin said:
babysitting for kids who go to fancy New York private schools
I just got a great gig as an English tutor for the daughter of a wealthy family in one of Seoul's nicest neighborhoods. the father is in real estate I think. it's going really well!
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15 minutes ago, feralgrad said:
To summarize, it seems that all grad students in the English department (including those from the MA programs) compete for 6 GTA positions, which only cover 2 classes and give you an $8k stipend. Since most programs suggest 3 classes per semester, that isn't full funding. Moreover, I'd guess the GTA positions are highly competitive.
whew, yeah, not great! thanks. I couldn't find the $ info on their website for some reason
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does anyone have funding info on the DePaul MFA? It definitely does not seem to be fully funded but it appears there may be some funding. I know they've had an MA for a while but asking specifically about the new (? I think?) MFA here
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35 minutes ago, Ydrl said:
You saved my butt. Thank you, this isn’t horribly far from where I live, and it seems like a realistic option.
Awesome, yeah, it definitely is a serious, legit-seeming program. I would've gone myself but it just didn't work for me at the time
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39 minutes ago, Ydrl said:
So uh, I know a lot of you have backup plans that involve moving somewhere else / trying again. I hope I don’t need my backup plan, because it’s applying to U Delaware for a PhD in Linguistics (in February). Somehow this feels even more unrealistic than my current plan.
a small here plug for Villanova's English MA, which has a March 1 application deadline. I have a not great GPA and got in here once with a full tuition waiver. They also seem to give some people positions that grant full tuition remission and a small stipend, so it's worth a shot if you're looking for a backup
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28 minutes ago, lilacbread said:
I think it's easy from the outside to see this as a form of gatekeeping—and in a way it is—but I think in another way it's an opened door for writers who wouldn't have had these opportunities otherwise.
Sure, of course this is true, and I do not mean to discount this at all. My comments were less specifically a critique of her or of Iowa than they were of the system more generally. Only mentioned Samantha because she was mentioned in the initial quote
My point is just that this process of credentialization actually excludes a whole new group of people, even as it creates a means of entry for members of previously excluded groups. This group is, basically, people without bachelors degrees, people with bachelors degrees from other countries (many US universities do not accept 3 year Indian degrees for example), or folks who are unable to attend graduate school in the US for any other reason. That's all. What you say is absolutely true and I do not question it. The process of credentialization has benefited many people and brought many folks (who otherwise would've been excluded, again) into the fold. I just think that we can widen the umbrella a bit more -
23 minutes ago, JPReinhold said:
When you say it is "elitist", can you explain in what sense?
here, just referring to system that is controlled by a small number of people, who have an outsize impact on the system relative to their numbers and democratic authority
imo, it's important to note that Iowa, Brown, etc have not achieved their status as centers of cultural production by appealing to the reading public, or to any other portion of the public, but rather by appealing to people at other elite institutions (including universities, publishers, places like the NEA/NEH, etc). I guess that's what I mean when I say they lack "democratic authority:" their authority to credential people as literary authors is given not by the public, but is instead given by a small number of people who have by and large already received these credentials
Obviously, this system has benefits and drawbacks. It's great if you can gain entry, but it's bad if you're one of the millions of people who (for example) does not have a bachelors degree, or is unable to attend grad school in the US for some other reason (can think of dozens of reasons why this would be the case), or even if you're someone with an MFA from a less selective institution or a low-res program, though this group is much less disadvantaged than the previous two. I think our literary culture would be richer if more/some of these people were included34 minutes ago, JPReinhold said:Until there is better funding from our society for the arts, the process for selecting who gets that funding will have to be competitive
to this: absolutely. but, the competition could be more democratic, the power less concentrated in the hands of a very small number of highly credentialed people. I think we can take a look at the 20th century and before (and even today) and accept that there are many, many people without these credentials who are producing art of a very high quality.
35 minutes ago, JPReinhold said:What do you suggest as an alternative?
I don't really have an image of an alternate system cooked up in my head. I think it's fine to point out that something is wrong even though I don't have a comprehensive solution figured out
A good place to start would be with agents: they need to start trawling places other than Iowa, Brown, and a few other schools. Even if you accept that the credentialing process we have now is basically good, there are (as we all know) dozens of highly selective places other than Iowa where you can go to look for good writers. Literary agents, by and large, do not visit these places.
I also think of Norway, whose elite writing academy does not require students to have a BA/BS. This opens it up to a whole swath of the population who would otherwise have been excluded
Also: I'm truly not trying to be aggressive, or to take a dump on everyone for participating in this process (I am obviously also participating in the process, which is taxing, brutal, etc), or to discourage anyone from applying or anything like that. I just think the system is flawed and frustratingly so. I also think that sometimes it often excludes the wrong people.
Finally: I am not referring to myself when I say "excludes the wrong people," since the jury's still out on whether I'm in or not (though like many others, I am planning for the worst - :~'{ ).
good tidings, positive vibes to all -
7 hours ago, mrvisser said:
The only process I've learned about in detail is Iowa’s. They have two people each read half of applicants' writing samples (about 500 each), and I believe these readers are writers-in-residence. They mark up the writing samples with their thoughts, and then the director, Samantha Chang, reads every writing sample submitted, all 1,000-some of them. Then she selects about 60 of them to go forward, and those she has chosen are read by an admissions committee. The committee selects who gets in from there.
Yeah, I saw this video too. Nice of them to put that stuff out there
It was a little disheartening to me, honestly, to see that one person has so much power in the process. It sounds like many of the top programs do something similar, where they narrow it down to ~60 and choose from there -- Syracuse has a similar video out on the Web somewhere -- which makes sense just from a logistical perspective, because of course you can't rule by committee on over 1k applications. But still, think of the enormous impact that Iowa has on US and even world literature, and then consider the immense power of this one person as a gatekeeper for this program, and then also for all of US literature by extension. Perhaps it is as Kanye says: "No one Prof (not even the Elizabeth M. Stanley Professor in the Arts) should have all that power"
Not sure if this is going to a be a popular comment here, but I feel like there has to be a way to make our literary culture a little bit less elitist, because this process and the culture more generally are elitist in the most literal sense (small number of people with greatly outsize impact on the culture relative to their numbers and cultural authority outside of the academy). I think that maybe we as outsiders sometimes defend this culture because we hope to be absorbed into it, but the fact that we could be absorbed into it doesn't really make it more just or defensible. Not an knock on Iowa necessarily, and not a knock on the individuals who operate/maintain this system. It's just that we have to actually change the system, I think -
1 hour ago, WolfMan said:
I don't get why people submit their stories to the criticism of random people on the facebook group. There's always the danger that someone will lift things from your writing sample. Best to entrust it people you're close to.
although I also trust strangers to tell me when something's bad, lol. not that I don't trust my friends to do that, but I think sometimes people close to us either let us off the hook without realizing, or maybe don't have the courage to tell us what's what
also I don't think people share writing draft proper, though I know there's a separate (much smaller) workshopping group. I am in neither, but just saying -
20 minutes ago, jka0124 said:
Columbia costs around $72k a year. That's just tuition and fees.
:'~[
2021 Applicants Forum
in Literary
Posted · Edited by Starbuck420
edit: clarity
haha nice, good find. I love it when they share this stuff. I remember when I was first considering applying, back in 2016, multiple CNF program heads listed Maggie Nelson as their most referenced author, which is interesting because I don't hear many applicants talk about her these days. Makes me wonder (genuinely, because the culture is so volatile) how CMM will be thought of by applicants in ~5-6 yrs