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I would say this is very rare (and probably even rarer in poetry)! I don't know anyone with an agent even after they've completed their degree lol. You also don't need an agent to get a book published. Maybe at like... the big ones... but you can still find lots of success without one! People might go for the MFA because it is the terminal degree in our field, meaning that you can teach with it at the college level. (I'm wary of the CW PhD in theory, but that's another story.) I could see that, if someone already has some initial success with their writing, they'd want to go for the degree in order to land teaching gigs later. Maybe they want paid time to write and a community to bounce ideas. Who knows? Same reasons as all of us, probably.

I wouldn't worry about this, because it probably varies and is unintentional. Maybe they printed out applications, made their decisions, and go back to their email and contact their admits in whatever order the apps were in. Maybe they do it from a ranked list. Maybe alphabetical. If you are admitted somewhere, then it doesn't effectively matter if you were contacted first or last, they wanted you in their program regardless.

Are they covering some or all of the travel costs? If so, I think that's a good sign. If not (which they might not even if you are to be admitted lol), then I'd personally wait until I was offered admission. I wouldn't want to fund my own trip somewhere just to not even get in! But it's up to you.

Just FYI, GradCafe keeps trying to download a virus exe every time I load the forum. I think they keep getting hacked. Be safe!

I would be truly shocked if Arizona cancelled their program or even skipped a cohort this year. If the university financial situation is truly the reason for the delay, then it's likely they'll need to cut their departmental operating budget by a certain percentage and are figuring out how it will work with regards to cohort size/funding/other expenses. edit: Also to mention that usually, departments at larger schools tend to have a decent chunk of cash from their alumni foundations that they theoretically could draw upon...

Welcome! "MFA Draft '24" is a group on Facebook with MFA applicants, current students, and vets. You have to request to join from some initial questions, but they should let you in within a few days after requesting.

I'm not sure how to go back to my job every M-F for the next 4-5 months without being like "Wow This Doesn't Matter Now! I Will Be Leaving!"

I should know more on Thursday when I have my phone call. But I do know there are 5 seats for poetry.

Just when we were talking about applicants who are 30+ applying to programs... I just got into Oregon for poetry!

I'm 31 and this is my second go. Hopefully I won't have to do this again, but if I do, my third try will definitely be the last. It does kinda give me whiplash when I see undergrads getting into programs (you all deserve it, don't get me wrong!) but I'm often thinking about what they're writing about and why I'm not standing out. I think it's worth it to give it another try if you have to! One thing I'm using to leverage the pain is that, through my job, I can go back for an MA at almost no cost, so it's not the "end" of getting a graduate degree for me. I might also have a chapbook coming out this year, so it's really just about setting reasonable goals and not putting all your happiness eggs into the MFA basket!

I have lots of thoughts on this topic, since I've been working in academia as staff for the last 4 years. One thing that I have noticed is that, generally speaking, the more "radical" faculty members are absolutely steadfast in their wanting change, but if they don't have allies within their own department, the change is either slow or non-existent. I can think of one faculty member that nobody likes and completely ignores their opinions, even when I felt like they had the correct opinion! During the pandemic, departments were charged with creating public diversity statements and when I tell you the amount of fighting that happened behind the scenes in my department just for this one document... Academia is an incredibly diverse place and agreement even within small departments is rarely found.

Thanks for the info! Hopefully I hear good news from them soon.

FYI that is probably 20 admits across both the MFA and the PhD programs. (That same language is used for both the MFA and PhD info pages.) I'm guessing that it could be 5 fiction/5 poetry for the MFA and 5 fiction/5 poetry for the PhD, but I genuinely don't know the breakdown on that.

I applied there and I have no idea how competitive it is. I know that it's more known for its PhD Creative Writing program. There was someone last year who got in off the waitlist who was active in Draft; but I'm not sure in terms of acceptance rate, how big the waitlist was, etc. From last year's list, someone said there were 5 fiction admits, but then someone else said 4-6 total for both poetry and fiction. Shrug Virginia traditionally doesn't notify until early March, so we may have another week on them. Not sure what's going on with the others, though.

In case anyone else also needs spreadsheet advice for literary publication submissions... Most lit mags/journals allow you to simultaneously submit places, so keeping track of where you've submitted is very important, especially if you need to withdraw your piece from the other places! Since these pubs can sometimes take 6+ months to accept/reject your piece, it would take forever to get published anywhere if you waited to hear back for each one. Currently my spreadsheet header row looks like this (and I just use a Google sheet, but an offline excel spreadsheet would also work): Column A - Publication Name Column B - Piece(s) Submitted Column C - Date Submitted Column D - (Decision, see below) Column E - Decision Date Column F - Feedback/Notes For my decision column (column D) I'm using three terms: "Accepted", "Declined", "Withdrawn". In lieu of having a header called "Decision", I'm using a formula to calculate the acceptance percentage, which looks like this: =SUM(COUNTIF(D2:D299,"Accepted"))/(SUM(COUNTIF(D2:D299,"Declined"))+(COUNTIF(D2:D299,"Accepted"))) Essentially, this formula will calculate number of cells that say "Accepted", divided by the number of cells that say "Accepted" or "Rejected", while ignoring the cells that say "Withdrawn" or are blank. You might have to format that cell to read as a percentage rather than the actual numerical value. And it will probably give you a DIV/0 error until you have an acceptance, but will work perfectly after that. Here's a photo of what it all looks like: imgur.com/a/geOwWm2

Idk if you need to be that organized for the MFA applications, but it is imperative to get a spreadsheet going for your submissions to publications if you haven't already! I made a decent one that automatically calculates the acceptance percentage.

Yes hahaha. I have a spreadsheet ready with application due dates, application amt, stipend amt, years in program, poetry faculty, etc.

Gathering thoughts: I'm about to follow up on my waitlist and I've had some more publications from the time I submitted my application to now. Should I bring this up or do you think that doesn't matter at all? On one hand, I'm not sure it will increase my odds if a spot does open up; on the other, it would show that I'm actively "being a writer" and making some connections, I guess?

I'm seeing 2/8 for a fiction and a poetry acceptance. They said it was specifically for their fellowship, but considering that the fiction and nonfic waitlists and rejections went out this week, I think it's safe to assume other admits were given out either that same day or shortly after.

Oregon State... where are your poetry waitlists... I was honestly expecting their waitlists/rejections out today, since fiction was tuesday and nonfic was yesterday.

I guess it sort of depends on what you're looking to obtain from the MFA experience and/or degree that you couldn't through doing summer writing workshops. It's harder to land an agent without the degree, true, but not impossible. You can definitely find other writers in your community or nearby if its camaraderie and feedback that you're looking for. Personally, spending $30k for the degree seems too high when you could spread that out over many summers attending workshops for a fraction of the price. Idaho sent out acceptances on 3/2 last year, but it might've been delayed due to budget stuff / not knowing how many spots they could offer per genre.

I don't think it hurts to say "X is my top choice and would accept an offer if admitted from the waitlist" (if you actually would). I said this to my top choice and they said that it was very helpful to know.

Anyone have a pulse on University of Oregon for poetry? I don't think anyone has seen anything and they usually have all their rejections out by now.

I've been thinking a lot about this phenomenon: when a few people get into almost every school they applied to... Last year I think there was a poet who got into like 8 fully-funded top tier programs. Good writing is good writing objectively, sure, (and I'm sure they're brilliant), but it seems kinda alarming that 8+ different adcoms thought the same thing by admitting that person. To me, that's a sort of omen to these programs that hints that they don't really have things in particular that they're looking for, and I can't stop feeling like that sort of erases all the unique things all of us bring to the table. Thoughts?

Actually I think you're right. english.northwestern.edu/graduate/admissions/mfa-ma-admissions.html says the 2023 application period is closed, but then on the same page it says "applications for 2024 are no longer being accepted". I don't know why they're going off of "application year" instead of the year of when the program would start.