edgecase

I feel you! You must have a strong portfolio to get all those interviews, so I hope you can lean into that part and feel that success, and may you end up at a school that's a good fit. I'm also waiting on two waitlists and feeling the stress of April 15th approaching. And I know how frustrating it can feel about the interviews, I also feel that I didn't interview well. Of course it's impossible to know what really went into their decisions, but as someone who doesn't have experience in the art world, I just literally didn't understand some of the questions. U of Arizona asked (one of only two questions), "what will your studio practice look like when you're here?" and I really fumbled that answer, and I could tell one of the professors was annoyed that I wasn't getting it. Of course I was rejected. Coming out of a creative writing MFA, no one talks about having a "practice". Everyone just wants to know what you are working on - a novel? short stories? sonnets? Maybe, what are the themes, what are your influences, are you working in any particular form. No one really cares what story you tell about your "practice", it's all about the actual manuscript and can you deliver on the page. Exceptions are maybe if you're doing a job talk for a tenure track position or if you're pitching an agent or doing something super experimental and hard to understand. There aren't interviews for most writing MFAs. So I was really unprepared for how to talk about my work in that way and didn't even understand the concept of a "practice" even though I've been making visual art for two decades. That said, I've learned a lot through visiting schools and meeting other faculty and art students about the discourse in art, so I'll be better prepared for these conversations in the future, and I'm sure you will too. I heard some good advice about interviews recently - write out all likely questions and then write out a paragraph answer for each and try to memorize them, seeing if you can hit most of the points. For one of the two schools I got into, they did send the questions ahead of time, and I basically just read off a piece of paper during the Zoom interview. It worked! Ack, best of luck!

I'm also on the UT Austin waitlist (photo). I think it's my top choice, but it's hard to know without visiting or being able to really talk to anyone there yet... this waiting is pretty tough!

Hi AJJAY, I support this. I feel unable to stop checking my email but I will commit in solidarity to not checking this forum, the results page, as well as the facebook forums I'm checking for other grad app updates until Thursday.

Hi biklo, I think ASU has done acceptances, I am high on the waitlist for photo although maybe they have yet to notify further down the waitlist or for other genres so I wouldn't be sure it's a rejection per se. They are doing an in-person recruitment day next week. Congrats on UT Austin - I'm on their waitlist... just curious if you know if they are doing in person recruitment day? Not going to to crash it, just wondering about all these processes...

I didn't write any thank you emails, because it just didn't occur to me that I was allowed to have more contact, and then it felt too late by the time I saw on here that other people did it. I'm still waiting to hear back from two schools I interviewed at (UT Austin and U of Arizona), both about 3 weeks ago. Do you think it's too late to send a thank you email now and just express my continued interest in their programs? Edit: just got an email waitlisted at UT. I guess that answers that piece! Bummer.

I interviewed there in photo not sculpture, but they told me not to expect to hear back until late March, because of bureaucracy things, so it might be the same across the department. That feels like soooo long from now!

ASU and Davis gave questions ahead of time to prepare. For the others: Why X school? Why an MFA? What would you in particular add to the program? What are your influences and references? What might your studio practice look like if you came (ideas for art making)? Where do you see yourself as an artist in 5 years? What makes your art contemporary? What are some recent exhibitions you've seen?

Yes, it is really nice not to feel alone in the waiting and have companionship in this process... thank you all. My update: UC Davis - accepted. Interviews completed and waiting to hear back from UW Madison, U of Arizona, ASU and UT Austin. No word from UCLA or Irvine. Expecting an eventual no from U of Oregon since other people have had interviews. Hardest interview question so far, that I was unprepared for: What makes your art contemporary?

Interviews upcoming with UW Madison, UC Davis, ASU, and U of Arizona. Still waiting on UCLA, UT Austin, UC Irvine, and U of Oregon. First interview tomorrow. Feeling nervous!

Looks like Oregon extended the deadline to the 17th, just fyi!

At the last minute I checked out U of Oregon and decided it could be a great fit - deadline was Jan 5th. It looks like the online system will still let me complete an application - do you think there's a point? I guess weighing the time/fee versus the possibility they will still look at it...

Thanks initalics! That is helpful. It really crystallizes what I had seen around but only vaguely understood or considered. I'm coming out of a creative writing MFA, where I think the standard is different - it's really not a problem to have completely disparate books/projects without a narrative about how they connect to a central thread/idea, if you can pull off each individual one. But I hear what you're saying and believe you, it confirms that yes, in the visual art world, you need to be able to communicate this backbone or spine and relate everything back to it, I wasn't thinking of it like that, but it makes sense, thank you. Not applying to Yale, focusing on schools highly likely to be funded in the western US. It seems like most of them have 20 image counts.

Question - for the portfolio (photography) is it better to submit all work from one project, or to show 2-3 different projects? 20 images could all be taken up by one project, but is showing a range important or valuable? How do people think about distribution?

anyone know the details of funding at University of Arizona or Arizona State?

Me as well! I'm wondering about the GRE... for those schools that still require it, is it fully okay to bomb the math, or no? Also, any sense of minimum score on the verbal one should aim for?