jka0124

Woot!!!

Hope y’all don’t mind I’m replying to you three at once! My website is www.jesilfa.com Signups for the class start May 1st and you can sign up now to be notified. The form is here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1PO4yGUqHyg6JJodpdR98Y_R85AiR6Tu5dt2L3SyrvAg/edit I do it this way so that people have a breather after 4/15 and make sure they want to take the class.

*waves* @Scribe already mentioned me (thank you!) but I can tell you what I’ve got coming up. If anyone feels weird about me talking about what I’ve got going on, sorry! I can delete. 1) I’m holding a masterclass via Cleaver Magazine on applying to MFAs. 2) I’m also holding a six-week summer class specifically for people reapplying in fiction. Several of my students last year got into Iowa, Michigan, Vanderbilt, etc. 3) I also do consultations on a sliding scale. Cleaver set the price of the masterclass, but I generally take a “pay what you can” approach for everything else, down to doing it for free. I’m just trying to get everyone into grad school 😂

Columbia fully funds *maybe* one person in their very large cohort and in all my years being in the MFA space, I’ve never heard of anyone getting a stipend for living expenses, just health insurance. The MFA program is just so overpriced. Even one of the faculty told me she feels bad making admission phone calls because it feels unethical to ask people to borrow $100k for an arts degree. it’s just so much. And I say this as someone who got in a few years back because I attended for undergrad and really wanted to stay in my apartment. 😅

God, yes. Even the pro-Palestine protest at AWP caused issues behind the scenes. And holy shit, wtf is going on at Poetry and Guernica? The academy doesn’t want to rock the boat which is the antithesis of what art does. Natalie Diaz said it best: “who does poetry feed when its poets are afraid to speak out against the starvation of children?”

No, the issue is that people who are applying and new to the group were giving bad advice. The MFA app process is pretty unique (for better or worse). If you (general “you”) haven’t had a successful season or been in draft for 2+ years, you may be unknowingly spreading misinformation, especially since there isn’t a way to designate in the comments who’s a vet. It has nothing to do with opinion and people are free to post and comment. As for draft, there are always people entitled af. And there are always people who are not ready to apply to programs and do anyway. This particular year has been an anxious, uninformed bunch. I say that with love. But I think we’re seeing some real post-pandemic…I don’t even know if “jitters” is the right word. But we as a nation haven’t really addressed most of us are traumatized so I’m not really surprised to see it manifest in places like these. I see it in my students too.

Only people on draft have access and those people are on FB with their real names. Could someone lie? Sure. Would they? Nah. It doesn’t really do much. It’s a lot easier to troll on here (which is why there have been trolls lol). The heaviest movement comes the first two weeks of April. There’s barely any movement by the time May rolls around. It’s April 1-18 that stresses me out a bit (and this is my 9th year doing this shit 😂).

Just swishing by to say congrats to all with good news! I’d post a dance gif but it’s much harder here than on FB. 😂

If you know you wouldn’t attend a school no matter what, it’s fine to cut them loose. I had to do it a few times and my template was essentially, “Dear [Contact], Thank you for the careful consideration of my work. Unfortunately, after weighing my options, I don’t think [program name] is the right place for me. It is a wonderful program and I wish you and the incoming cohort the best of luck.” Or something like that. If I had more of a connection with folks, I’d sprinkle in something more personal maybe. But for most, it was just this basic thing. Everyone replied with a basic good luck; some asked to let them know where I ended up (mostly so they could argue for resources from the university).

To clarify, “The April 15 resolution is an agreement among the signatory graduate schools to provide applicants until April 15 to consider offers of admission that also include financial support.” So it only includes programs that have signed and have offered you support, but it does include admission itself. Some schools haven’t signed (like Colorado State, unfortunately) and other schools have but the MFA programs don’t have to abide if they haven’t offered you support (like if you got into Columbia and they told you to take out loans lol). April 15 is such an iconic date that I would ask any program, signatory or not, if they would honor that timeline. Politely, of course.

Regarding waitlists: If you know you absolutely aren’t going to attend a school, by all means, cut them loose. But if you’re conflicted or weighing your options or want to make sure a program honors their deal, etc, take your time. There’s nothing wrong with waiting until April. Generally—not always but generally—waitlists have a domino affect. People are waiting to see if they get off waitlists into their top choices before they make their decision. Once Iowa, Michigan, Michener, and a few other schools finalize their cohorts, everything else falls into place. And because the turnaround can be really quick, I recommend you do some research about potential programs now just in case you find yourself making a decision on April 16th. In short, April can be wild. Godspeed, waitlisters.

I know. But sometimes people really just aren’t in any of these places. Vanderbilt is also done and already getting their acceptances together for recruitment. I wish they would just send out rejections too but 🤷🏾‍♀️

I believe Minnesota is done notifying. They made all their calls before the 21st and already invited prospies to recruitment events.

The highest I’ve seen just for fiction is 1500. Iowa competition is nuts. To be fair, some of those applicants are obvious no’s—people who aren’t on draft or gradcafe or have never taken a workshop or even read much. They hear about Iowa, they think, “I can write a novel!” and apply. Not to knock their efforts, it’s just not…Iowa level, if that makes sense.

I'm late on this, but I want to point out AWP was a month earlier than it usually was, so a lot of programs may have gotten through their piles of reading before the conference threw their schedules out of whack. I believe, on the whole, acceptances will skew earlier this year.

Who posted on the results page that they got into Cincinnati? I did too and our stats are similar (3/6). Let’s be cohort mates somewhere!

Congrats!!

Milwaukee? Which track, if you don’t mind me asking

People have definitely gotten off the waitlist at Syracuse. The administrator there has a reputation for being quite helpful. I would reach out and then check in again as 4/15 approaches. I hope it works out for you!

Such wonderful news from so many people. I’m sure I’ve missed other good news as well; Congratulations to all!

Not quite true. Most fully funded programs don’t need the FAFSA to distribute their funding, in my observation. The FAFSA does come in handy for federal or university-wide funds that are outside of the MFA’s purview. Since the application is free, it doesn’t hurt to fill it out.

Going into debt is a personal choice. I personally wouldn’t go into too much debt for the MFA. I personally wouldn’t go into any debt for Columbia. They literally have billions of dollars. Plus, they pack so much into two years; you’d have more time to write at other programs, even non-funded ones.

Yep. They just didn’t think they’d be on it until August. How do you even survive a season that long?

Well, to start with, there should be no secret, threatening private messages, such as the one that drove EternalWhiteKnight out. What the moderators do should be disclosed. Where did EWK say there was a threatening private message? The exchange she mentions was right in the post. Anyway, MFAs, blah blah blah, Columbia takes forever. Someone I know got into the program in August. That feels terrifying.

It seems like your main goal is teaching. Why is the MFA part of the plan? To be candid, some programs see an emphasis on teaching as a negative. There just aren’t many teaching jobs out there. You may be able to circumvent the MFA altogether and just get a PhD in English if the PhD is your goal. I’m just spitballing a bit here though. Ultimately I think you should try again next cycle! I bet your next app will be much much stronger.