Graceful Entropy

For writing book recs on my side, besides the one mentioned, I've always loved LeGuin's thoughts on writing, literally Conversations on Writing is just an interview w/ her sectioned out, but it is so, so pure. And Richard Hugo's Triggering Town gets me pumped about teaching writing. Also I love that @PaulMo has chosen this adoptive family. I love the Weike Wang rec. Brandon Taylor's Real Life has also gotten some great reviews, and specifically from some people who did postgrad chemistry/science work, I've heard that it is a great representation of that life.

Literally just this afternoon got an email from a recommender (who had already wrote the letter last year), and said my emails got stuck in her junk mail. I only really needed her for one teaching rec, and got someone else to cover, but she sent it in anyways. Guess it can't hurt.

If I am understanding @Starbuck420 right, I believe they are saying that using a single gatekeeper (even one who is a woman of color) is troubling. Everyone has biases, and not taking methodologically sound steps (such as blind readings w/ a panel of opinions) leads those biases to leak in more easily. Even journals use a variety of slush readers, though I imagine that's more so what those first two readers fulfill. Saying the system for filtration can improve doesn't mean that it becomes any less elite or competitive.

Hi Paul, congrats! But yea, I think you're definitely looking for this forum instead: https://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/31-chemistry/ lol Good luck!

I doubt any of your stuff is 'bad.' I think the best guidance is when someone helps you get your writing closer toward your goal in what you're trying to do with it. That can be hard to get w/out a relationship, which is why it's so cool when you can get people you trust to review and help you shape your work. Definitely one of the reasons I'm most looking forward to the possibility of getting into a program--getting to meet more of those kinda wonderful peoples.

Seconding @M-Lin . Even if TNR isn't my favorite, font isn't really a hill to push it on for submissions as far as I'm concerned. Gotsta keep it traditional and go w/ the flow when it comes to formatting, I think.

That's awesome! And yea, I would definitely reach out to your district to see pathways (subbing is always a good start to get a feel for the district.) One thing I would caution is that teaching certification is not quite that simple in every state*. In my own, you can't become certified unless you already have a degree in education. Worked w/ a dude last year who moved up here from FL, and despite teaching for the past six years, is not eligible for a teaching job up here, and can only be a para. *Speaking from my own experience w/ this process. I work as a long-term sub. One of the smaller reasons I'm trying get into an MFA program is that it will allow me to afford to go back to school and double down w/ a MEd, so that I can become a 'real' high school teacher.

Lolz. As the venerable poet will.i.am once quoth, "I gotta feeling."

Cheers to all celebrating something today, and a happy Friday to those who ain't. Let's hurry up and finish this year: Can't wait for 2021!

Y'all. I love you, but I can't stress this enough: Please do not engage w/ trolls. We call it out (as we have), and then ignore so as not to further the messaging. No oxygen, no fuel, no fire.

Got it. Thanks!

eh

There is definitely a similar voice here. Lolz. I say we move along. It's easy enough to just skim or skip past, not engage, and just focus on all the good most of us are throwing out to each other. I'm not as fancy as yall, but I'm quite enjoying the calm, clean writing in Emily St. John Mandel's Spaceship Eleven right now. Side question: how do yall put that little footer on the bottom where we can show which schools we applied to?

I don't mean this as a way of adding undue stress, just agreeing with others: please do go to the optometrist as soon as possible. I know it can be easy to ignore and push through these sorts of things (stubborn writers we are...), but my friend went through something similar and it ended up being very important to her health and well-being that she got her vision checked out. Stay positive and keep on keeping on, my friend.

Oh boy. I'm getting some definite troll vibes from the next sentence, but I'm going to try to answer this one earnestly. I think the beauty of graduate schools is that for the most part the distinctions of 'good' and 'better' really fall away, and do not come down to elitist notions of school tiers. Yes there are some really good professors at big schools like Columbia, but they also come with higher demands for those professors' attention or a lack of funding. The important piece is having institutional and peer support, as well as time to focus on your work and studies. This can happen anywhere, and what is best for one person may not be for another. Fortunately or not, just like in the outside world, your growth in writing will mainly come down to you and what you put into it and your community. tl;dr: No Ragrets.

Agh, really wish you had the ability to change out your SOPs or other documents all the way up until the deadline, even after you hit submit, since most schools don't start on them until then. Rread my original SOP draft the other day, and there was a part of it I felt pretty damn important, but somewhere along the revisions it got left on the cutting floor. WHY WON'T THEY JUST LET ME TINKER FOREVER LIKE I DO WITH ALL MY OTHER WRITING??!?!?!?:ladkfja;lbrbss

Howdy, all yall Michener applying people. Hope that getting that first deadline in helps. I know for me that once I get over that initial send--and just start doing--that everything becomes a bit easier. Even if after hitting submit I realize/learn I could've done something better... (like double-spacing SOPs, or making writing samples more blind (I always figured that I should want my name to be popping into their head w/ the material as much as possible)) Oh well. This is the part I've been looking forward to: s/outs of generosity, everyone saying where they applied, and the inevitable successes yall will have. Cheers all

Hey my good man, I'm sorry to hear about your previous non-selections last year. I am going to be blunt, as I think you may be the type of person who likes and responds well to that: this is a community that strives to support each other, and your previous two comments seem to be lacking a bit in that regard. As we are all writers, I think it is important and expected that we take time to look at how we are framing what we say, and considering how a reader may understand it. But, maybe you were just down that day. I totally get it. Been a year. Hope things continue to get better. @teaselI'm at about the same place as you: decent handle on my SOPs--a long, medium and short one--though not individualized yet, I've started the minutia of online apps for all my schools, and I'm just waiting on some trusted readers to let me know which pieces out of a smallish collection they think would really hit home on a sample. Don't forget about possible fee waivers @Ydrl, and good luck at getting into Minnesota and everywhere else!

I feel ya. Me too. The group members are slowly climbing, though. So either they're backed up and slowly going through the member requests, or they just don't like us ?

Pitt's out for this year. From their website: "In response to the disruptions caused by the global pandemic, graduate programs in the Humanities and Social Sciences in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh are pausing admissions for fall 2021. This includes the MFA and PhD programs in English."

Cheers @Ydrl. I'm not totally familiar with poetry--coming from a fiction perspective--and putting less, but better work seems intuitively correct to me, but I will relay that the one school I got accepted from last year was also the only one I put a particular story in--one that I thought didn't seem very literary or whatever, but they allowed a few extra pages than other schools so I jammed it in. So maybe don't short yourself. Self editing is important, but self rejection is a hell of a thing. Fine lines. Maybe that one piece is what really connects with a person that day.

And @feralgrad, thank you for the recommendation to see what other avenues of tuition coverage there might be. Obviously this spring was a bit of hell for all institutions, with everyone scurrying, but I often have trouble advocating for myself--or even knowing when I should. (My best effort? Saying: without funding, I will be unable to attend this fall.) It's good to remember that other solutions may be available.

Unfortunately, mine was a large state institution, at least to my relatively rural reckoning (around 21k students w/ 17k+ undergrads alone). How would you go about even finding out who students are in the programs you're considering? Twitter is my best mode of communication w/ the literary world, but even then it can be hard to find those currently in a specific program. And from what I've seen with the few I know in those non-massive programs, things aren't going great anywhere. I'm also wondering, what does strong research mean to you? While I search out and gain cursory information about all professors in a program and their works--except for the major ones like Saunders, Kiese Laymon etc.--I can't possibly read all their collections. And SOPs really seem to only want a paragraph on the program, which doesn't leave for much other than an honest statement for how you might fit, as well as some personal flattery. Oh well. Thank you for the commiseration all. Deep-end dives and good luck to everyone.

Fair enough. I may be speaking out of my wheelhouse in this. Though perhaps we all are to some degree. Maybe OP could reach out to someone in their program, higher up, or perhaps at their undergrad program--a trusted professor, etc.--could give better perspective, and better details about expectations and consequences of such a move.

Hey, just want to weigh in here: please don't limit yourself to a situation that might damage you for years to come. I think Sigaba is definitely right that racism is everywhere, but that doesn't mean you should willingly subject yourself to it; report it first, then try to get out. And while feral grad makes good points about being a good person, unfortunately we as applicants don't get the benefit of the doubt. So with that in mind, I would encourage you to consider applying just as you had last year--as though you have not yet made it into a program. Use your same references, if you can. And use the knowledge you've already gained to better everything. It might be sacrilegious to say all this round here, as it might take a spot from someone else, but I don't know what else to say. It's an expensive and time consuming "dice roll," as you put it. Will there be any way that the school can go after you for those funds if you leave? Is 'casual racism' the kind of veneer of deeper shit that you can slide past? Was this all just a dark moment of anguish and anxiety? I don't know. I think only you can decide what's right for you. Hope things get better either way. Good luck. (Also, if there's a way to DM on this site, I would definitely like to know where not to apply next year, please and thanks)