Rixor

I don't think it's a bad sign. I don't think it's wrong to ask, either, unless the initial email specifically says not to ask. Things are just busy, I'm sure.

Yeah, I might be completely wrong! It's just my guess from cross-referencing the data between this year and last year's spreadsheets for those schools that did disclose the numbers. Most seem to have went down, but I'm bad at math.

Just wanted to empathize with you! It's so hard waiting on these programs that historically tended to notify a few days or weeks ago. Especially given that this year apparently had a lower amount of applications overall! This week and the last have been especially tough! I hope you hear good news from Sarah Lawrence soon!

So, thinking back on that "signs" discussion, I'd like your advice. My first acceptance, which is at risk of being cancelled, just had their prospective student meet & greet cancelled do to a freak blizzard. 10 feet of snow. Scrolling on TikTok, I saw a video of a plane crash at the city where that college is. Sad to watch and learn about it, but I know that means nothing on its own. Then, an hour ago, I took my brother's car to get groceries for my mom, and when I went back out of the parking lot... It'd vanished. Someone stole it. It's a 199x junk sedan. It's been stolen while my grandfather's in for a risky procedure for his cancer. 🙃 Currently working out the legal stuff but--how do you stop noticing "bad" signs? Everything is indicating to me that maybe I should stay in my tiny hometown forever, and that I'm not meant to leave, and I know that's super irrational but I struggle to know how else to read it.

I like to pretend the schools that are taking so long are doing so because every single applicant was amazing and they're all in a little conference room together arguing like 'how on earth do we choose between all these lovely writers?'

Not to discredit this Iowa Twitter user's wonderful achievements in any way, but those of you feeling insecure--please try to put things into perspective. It's natural to feel insecure, but you all haven't failed, nor have you 'failed to use your time wisely.' I don't want to use an example from the literary world, so consider Billie Eilish. Admittedly I don't listen to her music, but I know she's young, wonderfully successful, and massively talented. But both of her college-educated parents are actors, her uncle's a politician, she was homeschooled and raised and trained in music from an extremely young age, was highly encouraged to participate in, and rewarded for, creative endeavors, etc. If anyone is going to succeed as a young artist, it's going to be someone like her. It's not universal, but it stands that a huge amount of people who achieve massive success in youth were afforded opportunities that others didn't have. Do you have enough free time and money to write consistently? Did you have access to opportunities to learn creative writing growing up? To share it? Is English your first language? Are your parents well-educated? Did you grow up someplace with a quality school system? Is your family and/or enviornment supportive? Did you have access to books? To the internet? To stories? Do you have people in your life eager to read your work and cheer you on? Do/did any parts of your identity bar you from 'appealing' to readers? Did you have people you could ask for free advice on your SOPs and writing samples? And, I mean. Even if you were set up for success in every way from the very beginning--though I doubt any of us were--living life isn't wasting time. Experiences only serve to strengthen one's writing.

Looking at the spreadsheet, Syracuse poetry says the waitlist is 6 people long. 4 people logged poetry waitlists. So, that'd be 66% of waitlists reported. But Syracuse is pretty 'prestigious' so that might be an outlier. UCR fiction has 20 people on the waitlist. Only 2 people reported it in the spreadsheet. So... 10% of people logged it? I guess it's a toss up.

I wouldn't count it as a rejection just yet! I don't know about Wyoming in particular, but one of my waitlists came days after the first ones were posted in the draft spreadsheet. I hope you hear good news soon.

I am so sorry for your loss. I'm wishing all the best for you. Please take care of yourself.

I've always felt so intensely frustrated with the idea of "signs." My mother is extremely religious, so everything was a "sign" with her. She'd see a mourning dove, and it was a visitation from our dead loved ones. She'd see a license plate from her favorite US state, Colorado, and it was a sign to move there. Her total at McDonalds is $11.11? A sign from God, according to her. He blessed the McChicken order. I never got it. City pigeons are doves, but we don't consider them dead family members. We see license plates from places like Kansas all the time--is that not a sign to move to Kansas? After her blessed McDonalds order, I pointed out a dead opossum on the side of the road. Is that not a sign? Is that not a bad omen? ...But I still notice "signs." Even if I don't like them, I notice them constantly. A mention of a school in a TV show, a random person on the street wearing a branded hoodie... I got a waitlist from Minnesota shortly after having its mascot, a thirteen-lined ground squirrel, visit my porch. You've given me a lot to think about, Writernity! Maybe this is just a quirk of being human--a way to cope with stress and uncertainty. It might be healthy to indulge in little rituals and superstitions. I'll try to let myself get excited about huskies and cowboys and horses from here on out.

Site is officially completely unusable for me. Too many malware risks. I can't even stay on the page for too long before my anti-virus forcibly redirects me. Talk to you guys later, I guess. Wishing y'all all the best in the meantime.

So, SO happy for you all!!! I'm so extremely overjoyed--especially after getting to know how lovely you all are!! Congratulations!

Ugh, now on PC, Chrome browser, this forum keeps trying to download malware just by visiting... I really hope they fix this site soon. Thank goodness my browser keeps blocking the downloads.

Congrats on the acceptances!! It is definitely not rude. It's helpful to do it as early as possible so they can sort out the waitlist stuff. I don't see why it would hurt you if you knew 100% that you didn't want to attend. There's a tiny chance that both of your other two acceptances could be cancelled or something, but I doubt it's worth fretting over. Time/finances might be a good "out." I would probably just thank them profusely and let them know that a different program suited your situation better, and that you wanted to notify as soon as possible for their convenience.

Oh, haha! That's funny! Scribe's humor--I have trouble detecting the irony sometimes. Congrats on the waitlist, Scribe! I hope someone drops.

What's horrible about it?

Adding onto the waitlist movement topic, after having one of my accepted programs get put into 'program might be cancelled' limbo, I'd be very, very apprehensive to drop any of my a's or w's until I'm certain my favored programs will be actually happening with funding. Maybe it's paranoia, but I'd probably encourage you all to maybe do the same and not turn down acceptances too early. Nothing is certain until it's certain, unfortunately.

A mod dropped by and said the forums got hacked, and that they're working on it. I hope it gets resolved soon! The forums have been glitching for me today. A bit ago, it wouldn't let me make any replies/posts. It's also let me make, like, 1/4th of the reactions I used to be able to. Wonder what's up. Haha--thank you for the weather update! I'm hoping we hear from Washington this week or the next!! But above all, hoping for good news for everyone!!

I don't know if my input matters much here, but in all my research before applying, I've only ever heard that older applicants are preferred over younger ones. It's illegal to discriminate either way, but programs do apparently have preferences. The rationale is that programs want people who have lived out in the real world for a while. An undergraduate student in their senior year has spent 16 years of life in academia, and will spend 2-3 more right after if admitted. There's often inherent naivety there just due to lack of living. Programs want people who have life experience, first and foremost because life experiences fuel peoples' writing and other creative work. Having worked a 9-5, having navigated career changes, being a parent, being a spouse, having watched the world change to a greater extent than someone younger has... All of these are merits. From what I've read, at least. I do wonder if programs like young students, too, because they're probably easier to 'train up' and 'mold' into writing in a certain style. Iowa faced a lawsuit for this a while back... "application statistics collected by the university show that, over the past five years, none of the 105 applicants age 51 or older were accepted into the workshop’s fiction program. Nearly half of the 135 fiction students accepted from 2013 to 2017 were between the ages of 18 and 25." So, 25+ seems to be the magic age. I don't know what the 'cut off' would be, but maybe 51.

I have absolutely zero insight on what they ask, but congratulations and good luck!!! Make sure to have questions to ask them, too

Friend/Roman/Compatriot--wow!!!! What excellent news!! I'm so, so happy for you!

Just to keep my expectations low, lol. Trying not to get my hopes up. The poets for Boise were all interviewed. Since I didn't get an interview request, I thought I was rejected. But maybe the fiction faculty just doesn't do interviews.

I haven't. I've been counting it as a 'soft rejection,' but I really haven't heard anything about it anywhere. Actually now that you mention it, previous years' results on Gradcafe show that a lot of people doing fiction seem to get notified ridiculously late, all the way in April.

Absolutely wonderful news!! You must feel amazing after 6 rejections to get into the flagship creative writing program. Congratulations!!!

I have no real idea, but I have a feeling this week is going to be very busy with notifications across the board.