Hi all,
Long-time lurker, first-time poster. I applied for the first time last year to eight “top-tier” fully-funded schools (fiction), was waitlisted for three, and accepted at one, where I’m currently studying. I don’t have an English Literature or even a Humanities-related degree, was two years out from undergrad, and was applying from outside the United States.
There are a few select areas where the troll’s cynicism is not only warranted, but potentially helpful. He’s correct that many do not recommend a non-funded program. I strongly recommend everyone carefully consider the level of debt they’re willing to accrue for a Creative Writing degree, keeping in mind the costs of healthcare, moving, and costs of living, as well as the reality of adjuncting and traditional publication. On average, people make less post-MFA than they did before. These aren't considerations that anyone can make for you, and program rankings are incredibly subjective and individualized. (Karen Russell and Mat Johnson, for example, studied at Columbia, and have both been highly successful in publishing and teaching).
His attitude towards acceptance and the fellow applicants on this forum, however, strikes me as extremely misguided. The MFA experience is, fundamentally, one of community. If money and time are all you want from a program, you’re probably better off with the stock market, because I’m not rich in either. Workshop is the heart of the MFA. Reading others’ work, generously, providing feedback that aims to comprehend the beating heart of a story, and offering suggestions that might allow the author to accomplish their vision for the story with even greater strength and nuance. Workshop is also a process of humility. Of accepting feedback, but also accepting that your vision for the story may be radically different from the story you accomplished on the page.
I respect the troll’s knowledge. He is clearly well-researched on a process that lacks transparency and accessible information, and can often feel like an elaborate game of telephone. He could be, and sometimes is, a resource for newcomers to the process. However, due to the stark lack of generosity or curiosity he displays towards other applicants on this forum, I’m not sure I’d want to work with him in a cohort.
My application pieces were the first two literary short stories I’d ever written. One was about theoretical physics and the other about TikTok. Both would handily fail his New Yorker test. I have no doubt that he would have told me last year not to bother applying, that I was delusional. I don’t have any illusions about my prospects of publication post-MFA. Getting an agent or a manuscript accepted is unlikely even for writers further along than I am. But I believed I could get into a fully-funded MFA, and (with luck) I did. I have to believe—or at least try to believe—I can do the rest, too, if I’m to have any chance of accomplishing anything.
The troll loves to cite statistics. He refers constantly to the odds of winning the Powerball/lottery. These are statistically random and independent events. Yet when it comes to browbeating strangers, suddenly he understands that MFA acceptance isn’t statistically random or independent, stating that if you’ve been rejected from one school, it’s irrational to hope for acceptance to any others. (This strikes me as an unhelpful heuristic—I was rejected before I was waitlisted, etc. Even the most wildly successful applicants who are accepted almost across the board might receive their one or two rejections first). But above all, what I take issue with is how he treats the vulnerability and emotional candidness of posters on this forum as foolishness or ignorance, and mistakes lashing out at others for realism or honesty.
I don’t deny him his pessimism. The application process is brutal—we write pieces revealing ourselves in our most vulnerable states, send them off to a committee of strangers, and wait for them to judge, in a line or two, whether we are worthy. There is no control or transparency in this system. We all reach for the attitudes that allow us to cope with uncertainty, be that hope or nihilism. Neither will guarantee a spot at a program.
However: writing is a process of hope. Of iterative, incremental improvement. Of beating your head against the page until the breakthrough hits you in the moment your guard is down. We all know this process, and wish it was easier. Or at least more linear. We also know that beating down others won’t make words miraculously appear on the page.
I’d recommend everyone take a look at Mat Johnson’s candid thread about the MFA acceptance process, and the letter from Alex Parsons on the UH website (urls below). In Parson’s words: “What am I hoping for? A fresh impression. A glimpse of the writer’s talent and perception and intellect that gives the work a vivid, memorable quality. An original sensibility or means of expression, or subject. It might be the angle from which the writer looks at other people is unusual; it might be a lapidary sense for the facet and fit of words; it might be the energy or urgency to the storytelling coiled in the sentences and similes. But whatever it is, it is yours.”
I wish everyone here the best this cycle, and if you have any questions for a current MFA student, please feel free to ask and I’ll do my best to respond.
https://uh.edu/class/english/programs/graduate/creative-writing/prospective-students/cheat-sheet/
https://twitter.com/mat_johnson/status/1592156356886532099
