Since the two people I turn to for creative/professional advice are telling me opposite things, I wanted to ask the internet:
If this was your first time applying and you got into more than one fully funded programs, waitlisted at more than one fully funded program, but rejected by your 4 "dream" schools (Cornell, Brown, Hunter, IWW) would you:
A ) be grateful and accept the best offer you got this year
B ) read these results as a sign to roll the dice and apply again next year believing there will be fewer apps and your manuscript will be better, and you'll get actually into one of your dream schools.
After getting an encouraging personal rejection from Iowa (fiction), I honestly feel torn about this. I really admire the people who apply 2,3, or more times and DO end up exactly where they want. But this process has given me months of nontrivial anxiety - and so does the thought of going through it again when I don't have to (and ultimately could get in nowhere). I feel like there's a relevant aphorism out there that would tell me what to do, but I don't have a good memory for that kind of thing lol.
