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I did send an unofficial one and it's marked as received!

I did check my portal, there's no changes on it and everything is marked as received. I definitely didn't send an official-official transcript though, so I expect they'll probably request that soon?

Thank you, good to know!! I should be fine with GPA and didn't submit anything for TOEFL or GRE or anything, I will likely have to send the official transcript though. My only concern now is when funding offers will be finalized in this process lol

AHHH I GOT ACCEPTED AT STONY BROOK!!! SORT OF! POSSIBLY! It's a "you've been recommended for acceptance contingent on final review by graduate admissions office" email and I am not sure what that means, especially since there's no portal updates and others have been reporting their acceptances to SB were "check portal" emails with funding offers attached. Is it a sign that I'm missing something (non-crucial) on my app? Is it a good sign that I'm being considered for a big funding package that needs more consideration? Are they just working through the alphabet and I got the mass email that came halfway through the manual portal updates?? Anyone have any insights? 😅

Ty!! I figured it was something like that but didn't see it in my skim over the past few pages, yall have been Chatty these past few days lol! (which is a good thing, love to see it!)

Does anyone know what happened to these forums?? Suddenly they're completely inaccessible on mobile due to spam ads seems to be working fine on desktop, but even in my adblock browser app on mobile I was getting constant redirects to scam pages. Anyways, hoping for good news this week for everyone here!! 🙏 For the Weekly Writernity Forecast, I'm predicting that it might be a bit quiet this week, but a big acceptance storm front will be moving in next week. I am expecting to see some continuing rain from NYU this week, with a handful of acceptances trickling in already, but NYU is known to spread its news out and the drizzle may continue throughout March and even into April. Official Pittsburgh acceptances/rejections should be pouring in any day now, and we may see Hunter and Brooklyn College testing the waters with interview requests soon. Stony Brook should also likely be reaching out for interviews soon following their email earlier this month, and Manhattanville is running late on expected result time so there may be a deluge in the next week. Hold onto your hats and prepare the umbrellas, everyone! Soon the good news will pour upon ye!

Oooo this is handy!! I do have a fairly detailed spreadsheet myself for publications and grad schools, but not one that does the math for me lol. I recommend checking out the Submissions Grinder, Chill Subs, and Duotrope (if you want to pay for it) for user-submitted stats on acceptance rates and response times if y'all love having more Data like I do!

I could use a walk in the woods myself, I've been a shut-in aside from work 😅 otherwise, my aunt is visiting, and I plan to get some characters made for some tabletop games my friends are running and do some reading! A fun story yall might enjoy: I'm in a book club with some friends, and when I went to B&N last weekend, I hadn't checked what book was up next, I had no idea what was even on the roster. But there were some "blind date" mystery books wrapped up, and I got one that seemed interesting... and it turned out to be The City & The City, which is, coincidentally, the next book for book club. The universe smiled on me and I am sure I'll enjoy this read!

FINALLY got my JHU rejection! 🎉 hopefully no one else is left waiting after today. The struggles of being at the bottom of the alphabet 🤣 0a/0w/3r/10p

Many people seem to be recommending saying exactly that, that it's your top choice! I'm not sure how much of an impact it actually has, but it wouldn't be a negative one.

Yep, I'm in the same boat 🤣 I think I've slowed down my compulsive checking a little, but every time I go to open the Draft spreadsheet on mobile it still says "you often open around this time..." At least I've learned that the weekends are usually quieter and only check like, 3 times a day then.

Got my Syracuse rejection 😔 ah well. Brown and Hunter are my only fully funded hopes left (assuming rejection from JHU and Pitt), and the ones I feel are the best fit for me, so I'm holding out hope 🙏 0a/0w/2r/11p

CONGRATS!! 🎉🎉 Omg I hope you're okay though and recovering from whatever was going on 🙏

There are the people who get into 8 top tier programs, but then there are also the people who get rejected from everywhere, even safety schools, except one top tier program. As the others have said, sometimes a writer hits the nail on the writing zeitgeist, and sometimes it might have to do with a banger SOP filled with accolades and the perfect grad student spirit. We can speculate all we want, but there's no way to really know for sure what's going on behind the scenes (though it certainly is interesting to think about, it's not worth worrying over invisible standards) CONGRATS on the NYU fellowship!! 🎉🎉 That's awesome news!! And thanks for letting us know the timeline!

Just got a Cornell rejection! Looks like they're going out en masse. I'm just glad to get some kind of news! 🎉 0a/0w/1r/12p

As others have said, rejections are part of the process-- even the most accomplished authors get a slew of rejections! If you've had any yeses, that's a big accomplishment! I know a lot of writers who have "rejection bingo" sheets or the like where they get themselves a treat once they reach a certain number of rejections 🤣 some compete with friends to see who can get the most rejections in a quarter! The more rejections you get, that means the more you're sending out, the more people are reading your work, and the closer you are to finding the right home for a piece. A rejection doesn't mean your work isn't good-- it might just not be fitting for that particular mag, or just got unlucky in a cycle with too many similar pieces in submission, or it just didn't appeal to the subjective taste of the editors/slush readers. You just have to keep going and make rejections something to celebrate instead of treating them as a punishment. If you (and anyone else like @Scribe) haven't been using them already, check out the Submissions Grinder by diabolical plots and Chill Subs (and Duotrope, but that needs a paid subscription, for short stories/poems the others are just as good but in searching for book agents and publishers duotrope is best). Those are sites that allow you to search and filter publications and contests to find the right places to submit, and they have user submitted stats so you can see average response times! (Chill Subs is newer and doesn't have much stats yet, but their filtering system is more robust than Submission Grinder) If you don't know much about how to format submissions or what to write in your letters, there's tons of advice (that may vary by genre) and examples freely available online. Most publications will mention any formatting guidelines on their submission pages, follow what they say and you'll be golden!

Happy Monday all! Might be a slow day due to the holiday, but hoping for some kind of news this week as we move into late February! 🙏 JHU will probably(hopefully) finish with rejections this week, and Pittsburgh is likely to send final decisions this week based on past trends. We'll likely see more NYU acceptances as well moving into March. From my Aggregated Data, I'm forecasting final results before the end of the month from Cornell and Syracuse. Hunter may request interviews soon, but may be later this year than usual. Manhattanville and Stony Brook should also be making some moves soon (I don't think I've heard of any interview requests yet for SB aside from that vague email?) This has been your Writernity Weekly Forecast. If I am correct about at least half of this I am claiming psychic powers. 🔮

Yes, Brown tends to send responses early-mid March. Some rejections may come before acceptances/waitlists as well.

Fun Weekend Question for everyone: what are your favorite topics/themes to write about? I like to write a lot of stories about queer identity, different forms of love, deep dives into the psychology of fear and grief, death, dreams, and existentialism!

Thank you for the info, good to know! And CONGRATS!! 🎉 there definitely are some trolls-- we've had one confirmed this year-- but I'm sure they're not that common. I just like to stay skeptical until more data comes in, and I never count anything out til the official rejection comes in. Yeah usually it's for everyone, though sometimes it does depend and most of the time the school will be clear about that upfront from what I've seen. I know Hunter only covers full tuition for in-state students, and applies that amount to OOS tuition, which they say on the app info page. Don't give up hope yet! You still have 9 schools to go, and a lot of programs don't start notifying at all til March! It's natural to get much more rejections than acceptances, especially with competitive programs. Making it to round 2 for UTK is already an accomplishment that shows you're on the right track! Your recommendors had faith in you, so have faith in yourself that something good will come.

Usually Syracuse has tended to send acceptances and rejections pretty close together, and there's only been that one piece of news, so for now I'm skeptical it's legit. But we were all being skeptical about NYU earlier and had that proven wrong, so it's hard to say 😅 for now though I definitely would not cross it off! Still a good chance they haven't even started sending acceptances!

CONGRATS!! Definitely a good sign for funding that you've been contacted this early, wishing you a full package! 🙏 Guess that confirms our earlier wonderings about NYU lol, nice that they're starting earlier than last year. Hoping all us hopefuls get good news! 🙏

Do you mean the person accepted this year spoke about it, or someone from a previous year? NYU DOES spread out their news, though-- last year's acceptances ranged from February 23rd to March 2nd, with a couple waitlist additions reported later in March and rejections not until April 4th. So it is fully possible they've started a little earlier this year and we may hear more in the next few weeks.

NYU doesn't do interviews as far as I can tell, but the acceptance on Draft is definitely sketchy. NYU historically sends out news sometime mid-Feb to mid-March, and has been trending later and into April in recent years, so this feels a bit early and too isolated. We'll see soon if any other news comes in to legitimize it.

Congrats!! That program sounds really interesting, I would love to attend a program that supports game writing... if nothing works out this year, maybe I'll apply for the optional-residency program there next year (but fingers crossed for acceptances this year 🤞)