Downtozero

Houston and NYU have both accepted at least one poetry student recently, per Draft. Not sure about UVA and Columbia, and am pretty sure Brown is usually in March.

I am also curious how long the Iowa acceptances are drawn out. My hope is beginning to dwindle on that front (I know waitlists are later).

I only saw fiction. I think I saw three total, some of them only shared in comments and didnt make their own post.

Guessing all Michener fiction acceptances were called yesterday. Do we have any intel on waitlists? Looking at previous years it seems they may go out later via email?

I think that is common -- both being in disbelief about the acceptance, and not seeing a portal update for a while after you get a call. Don't worry, you're in. Call back tomorrow if you're anxious?

Doesn't Cornell usually do acceptances by phone call and then waitlists/rejections by email, all within the same day? Or was that only last year? Haven't seen anything else from them yet.

I also got to Phase 2 and haven't heard anything else, other than automated responses when my recommenders upload a letter. Looking at years past, it seems like they make final decisions in late feb/early March?

I agree with you. I also write drivel for a living so maybe that feeling comes with the territory.

Idk if you're in Draft 21 but there was an early post that was a call for stories from "draft veterans" and some of the ones posted were successful MFA writing samples from years past. You could find it probably by searching "veterans". Outside of Draft, I dunno, other than looking at publishing CVs/websites of current students (at the programs that list such things) and extrapolating from the timeline. This story got someone into multiple programs including Michener, if I recall correctly from their post on the MFA Years blog.

Mine says that too. Look, I've worked in higher ed admin before, my advice to everyone: Stop. Overanalyzing. Your portals. And also: if someone got a random marketing email from a school that you didn't get, it does not mean that they made it past some inscrutable micro-round in the application cycle and you didn't. I've seen this worry expressed a couple times on Draft. Chilllll.

See my edit !

Huh, mine says completed 2/15. Which is new. (I think it previously said something like "successfully submitted 12/11" or whenever it was.) So perhaps they are wrapping things up? Best not to overanalyze...

I feel you and I have definitely met (and/or dated) the stereotypical Bukowksi and Cormac fans, I guess I just haven't met many Kafka bros in my life. I would even venture to say that I wish I met more. I also once dated someone whose favorite book was the Fountainhead and who told me he wanted to name his kid "Howard Roark" (huge red flag which I should have heeded)...lest anyone accuse me of not being conversant with the many flavors of lit bros that exist in this world. I kept making huge changes to my SOP and with each school I applied to, but I mostly avoided listing influences by name. In a couple, the sole author I name-dropped was Flannery OConnor (not by explicitly naming her as an influence, but by quoting an essay she wrote about fiction) and now I feel embarrassed/regretful because she's probably one of the most obvious references you can list in an SOP...sigh.

I'm not hinging their candidacy on snobbiness. I'm extremely snobby myself. I was just vaguely alluding to jokes I've heard about "guy in your MFA" types who are obsessed with Bukowski or Kafka or Cormac McCarthy. I promise I'm not the troll, just a lurker who was moved to finally register but...I'm a little perplexed by your examples here. I get how Bukowski and Cormac McCarthy are stereotypical MFA-dude faves or whatever (even though they write in totally different styles and predominantly different genres, and I dare say they're both valid literary influences, I get it: they're American white men who write about sex and violence and their non-white, non-male characters are at best a little "flat")...but this is the first time I've seen Kafka listed as part of the "bro" canon and I feel like I have to defend his honor here!