Gertrude.

Every phrasing is a simplification, including “objective.” I had one teacher with the attitude that there is no objective better. You could give anything a third grader wrote, and he would think it isn’t necessarily any worse than Shakespeare. He would want to weigh pros and cons. If he taught Directed Writing, he would give no edits. He is in the minority. There is no point to school if he is right. Objective error in writing doesn’t mean someone claimed 1 + 1 = 3, which is literally the only objective error possible. Objective error in writing mean 9 / 10 good readers or writing professors will agree one version is preferable. If only 7 / 10 will agree, the error can only be called subjective. It probably would be better to take out “huge” also. I actually found “foundational” more distracting because it is more an abstraction and pretentious. It gave an aura of a writer trying to impress (or indulge his idea) with a complicated or fancy form, when there was no new substance. I didn't sense the author's appreciation of the need to keep a vigil for simplification. Repeating things can be a valid tactic. An author might decide that comparing something to breathing wasn’t enough. She might want some elaboration, but that is usually done through an image, not a petty abstraction, like adding the word “foundational.” This is sometimes called "overwriting." It is a rookie instinct that always fades. Hemingway goes aggressively in the other direction.

Read the sentence without the word foundational: “not acknowledging my faith is like not breathing for me; it gets pretty suffocating after awhile. It's a huge foundational part of my existence, and it's kind of hard to keep silent about the Guy who gave me my heart back when I was on the brink five or six years ago.” I assure you most creative writing professors would strike the word foundational. Whatever the word connotes is connoted elsewhere enough. From a semantic perspective the word adds nothing. We already know breathing is foundational. Do we need to emphasize it again? No. The error is about as objective as you will get in writing. Your basic premise is that there is no objective right and wrong, or better and worse. It would make MFA applications a ridiculous exercise. It would make Nobel Prizes in Writing ridiculous. Some words in some instances add more verbiage than anything else. Some things are best characterized by a reader as an objective error, and some things are best characterized as subjectively declared an error. When I say fluff, I mean the verbiage overwhelms any advantage, any extra information. Foundational also breaches another guideline: to be concrete.

I would love some. Now, I'm no expert on Flannery O'Connor. I was citing her for Christian themes without sounding preachy. EternalWhiteNight usually has a preachiness to her, like she is calling herself to testify for what Jesus did for her and has an agenda, that is getting you to join the fold. Yeah, I was wrong about "heart." It should go. LaPlante at page 121 says there are two stages of metaphors. Cliché (raved like a lunatic) and Dead Metaphor (ran for office.) The metaphor starts as a cliché, and with enough use become a regular part of English, that is a Dead Metaphor. I call "long haul" still a cliché (not allowed). You argue it has already reached the dead metaphor stage, so is allowed. I guess that's a judgment call. "You treat words as isolated entities." I did so because I attacked objective errors that added no "tones, connotations, and intentions." Can you cite one of my edits and advise what "tones, connotations, and intentions" I missed.

This is generally good. "Breathing" is concrete. "Foundational" is unnecessary fluff. "Silent" is concrete. "the Guy" is kinda spunky. "Heart" is concrete. "Brink five or six years ago": be careful about the redemption story; it's a trope. "Long haul" is cliché. Consider "in it so long as I still breath." Read Flannery O'Connor. Every theme of hers was Christian, but her stories don't preach and have many bad guys.

Your best work yet. I'm going to suggest a few edits below mostly for concreteness. Take a story you wrote and play around with making similar edits.

So remember your words. I can quote you. These are your quotes about whether you will go to Iowa or Michener:

If Jesus taught me anything this year, it was to give up early because every school said no. A straight flush. I might quote you on this one year from now. See y'all next year. It's been a pleasure.

No, no. Strive for the point where you don’t care what they call you. Let them call you a troll or Lucifer or retarded or mediocre or dull or rejected. It should never matter. Reach the level where you must strive to remember the silly time when it did matter.

I use a different opiate. Marijuana.

But there is nothing to be sorry for. I’ve said it before. The more the early rejection, the greater the share of honor. Feel sorry for readers who may be deprived of my words. Feel sorry for those contorting rejections as the best outcome for practical purposes. It is they who merit your sympathy. As far as practicalities go, no, rejection was not for the best. Fortunately I am a woman who never cared much for practicalities.

Oh, silly Ydrl. What's this new interest me? I'm just a working scrub. There is nothing interesting in me. No school will even suffer me.

I’m not surprised that you don’t think all hope is lost. With me, all hope was lost a long time ago.

I don’t believe that is why they stopped. They stopped because poets complained about ranking art and people. There is no precise way to rank anything, but I don’t need a magazine to know Columbia is no longer one of the top five pickiest.

That is temporary. A few years ago, no school was fully funded, and Columbia was top five. Then the top 60 schools started to be fully funded, but the New York schools didn't. Columbia is no longer top five or top 60. It is just a matter of time before it basically accepts everyone. Or it will start funding. No mass numbers will pay out of their ass for Ivy that is open admission. Harvard Extension School and Columbia College of General Studies are open admission Ivy, but only alum's like Jessica Silfa calls them Ivy League.

It is not a matter of rich. The prestige depends upon how hard the program is to get into, not just on who teaches. Have you seen a single person posting an intimation of choosing Columbia over a funded program? The article from the Atlantic is two years old. A lot has happened in two years. A lot more schools became fully funded. Who is Gustav?