writernity

So much great news, I love to see it!!! CONGRATS YALL!!! 💜💜💜 I'm still waiting too-- my bet is that the portal is set up so that someone has to manually select a drop-down menu to reject every person individually which sends out an auto-email. I've worked with systems like that before that have no mass select option 😅 So the wait may be reliant on whatever poor soul they have clicking menus for 500 people lol Brooklyn usually starts interviewing people and accepting/waitlisting them in early-mid March, with rejections in late March

I would love some queer adult romance recs 👀 most of what I've been reading for fun the past few years is fan-translated queer Chinese webnovels 🤣 if anyone wants to read some great queer fantasy, there are some official English publications including Heaven Officials' Blessing and The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, my personal favorites!

Yup, I'm still waiting too! Maybe fixing email, maybe sending them out one by one in alphabetical order, I'm usually near the bottom 🤣 I was right that there was stuff going on behind the scenes we might not know about though-- there were waitlist additions just yesterday, and now today rejections are coming. So even when the outlook seems bleak, nothing is final til that email arrives!

Yeah, I don't see any sort of program funding for City College, while all the others you applied to have at least some chance of funding. I applied to all the same except Sarah Lawrence, and City College wasn't even on my radar. I'd definitely pass on it personally. Wishing you good luck! 🙏

I may have spoken a tad too soon-- someone put a Pitt interview for nonfiction on the draft sheet today! I forgot they had cnf 😅 it does look like they're most likely done with reqs for fiction and poetry, but you never know. Don't cross anything out until official notice comes! One person logged an acceptance for a PHD at South Carolina on the 2nd, but I'm not seeing anything beyond that. I don't see anything for Nevada LA, but a couple reports for Nevada Reno and one for Nevada Las Vegas. 2 acceptances were logged for South Florida on the 5th, one for poetry and one for fiction. Nothing from the rest so far. You might want to check here on the gradcafe results tab too, that's just from Draft.

Pitt sent out interview requests Jan 30-Feb 6, based on prior years that most likely means they're done sending those and will be sending out the final results by the end of the month. If we haven't gotten anything by now it's probably safe to assume rejection 😔 (though I'll always hold a small sliver of hope until the official rejection and take the waiting time to brace myself lol)

Welcome!! I don't think there's really a "right" reason for pursuing an MFA, but there definitely are a lot of considerations to make, especially when it comes to moving to another country. I'm sure you've already considered the finances, but it bears mentioning that most programs' stipends are just barely enough for one person to live off of, let alone a family. There are also some great creative writing programs in the UK I've heard about if you want to go a little less far, though I can't say I know too much about them. I do think, for everyone here, that if a writing community is the biggest thing you're looking for out of an MFA, there are other ways to find one that are a lot cheaper and less life-consuming. That aspect is also a draw for me, but I'm fortunate that I've been able to find a really good group of friends to write and swap feedback with. One lives close enough to see in person, and the rest I do regular online writing sessions with at least once a week via Discord. It's worth looking into if there are any local writing communities you can join, like workshop groups that meet at the library or a NaNoWriMo group that continues in the off-season. There are also TONS of online writing communities that cater to every genre and niche you can think of! Of course, not everyone likes being in communities that are solely online, but it is a great option for those who do. That said, even though I do have a good supportive writing group, I am drawn to the community aspect of MFA programs and being able to expand my circle with people who are on a similar path and serious about writing. The more writers I can interact and learn from, the better! I loved being in undergrad workshops and miss that academic writing environment of mutual learning (and deadlines with consequences to kick my ADHD brain into gear lol). I am aiming to teach as my end goal, so I do kind of need a grad degree, and I also value the literary mentorship and potential publishing connections that an MFA offers. Having the time to dedicate myself solely to writing is also a big benefit, especially as I imagine that writing time will grow harder and harder to find as time goes on. There are a lot of very personal considerations to make for everyone considering an MFA program, and I hope you all follow your hearts and dreams to the best outcome for you ❤️

It's likely to go on for at least another month based on the typical data. A lot of schools don't tend to send anything out til mid-March, and even into early April! I do feel like big stuff might be coming this week, though. Partially because I just today finished up all my major obligations that have been keeping me busy, and now all that's left is The Waiting. Combined with the past two weeks of said Waiting, the anticipation is really building and building and ready to burst! I do expect we'll see official results from Pittsburgh and JHU this week, at the least.

I don't think it's particularly an "asshole" move to take some time sending rejections. There are a lot of moving parts those of us outside may not be aware of. All of these decisions made may involve several steps and processes between faculty committees and admissions staff, and who of us knows what the process looks like in organizing applications and updating all portals? We have no idea what kinds of considerations are being made behind the scenes-- maybe it's even just that they have to manually select all of the 450+ applicants on the portal that they're rejecting before a mass update goes out, and that clicking around can take more time than you think, or any number of other reasons. Maybe there ARE some extra waitlist considerations being made. It's a big privilege that we even have internet access and a community sharing information, when even 20 years ago we'd be waiting in the dark for snail mail. I know the waiting sucks, but a couple of extra days or weeks of waiting isn't going to kill us.

I love learning about everyone here! 😁 I'm 25, graduated December '21 with a psych degree and creative writing minor. I'm unpublished for fiction (though I haven't sent anything out in a while, I should get back on that 😅) but have been writing, developing, and publishing a bunch of visual novel games over the past 2 years. I also voice act and draw. My plan is to be a creative writing teacher, either as a professor or working with underserved populations, like prison rehabilitation programs or underfunded schools. If I don't get in anywhere with enough funding this year, I'll have to consider future plans, and will probably either reapply next cycle or try to pursue game writing/dev + acting as a career. Or do both and see where life takes me! For now, I'm working as a tutor for general k-12 reading/writing/math and SAT reading/writing.

Not necessarily-- based on past years, acceptance/waitlist notifs can be spread out across a few days. I'm still holding hope for a little longer 🙏

Someone else did it first, but I jumped on board 😅 I'm using the same pseudonym for the draft spreadsheet. Idk how many people Bloomington accepts usually- a quote from 2016 says 8 accepted, 4 from each genre, not sure if that's still true. It's 11 fiction and 8 poetry applicants currently reporting waitlists, some even quoting being told they're "near the top of a very short waitlist." It does feel like a weirdly high amount of reports especially since the waitlist is supposedly "very short" and there weren't nearly as much last year, but maybe we've just got a fun statistical anomaly where the majority of Indiana waitlisters are on Draft but no one accepted is lol. It's definitely not impossible! Edit: there's one Bloomington poetry acceptance on gradcafe!

Yeah I might have jumped the gun there after seeing someone else do it 😅 well, guess we'll see what comes of it soon enough. CONGRATS!!!

I got the same email as yall! After careful scrutiny it does seem to be implying they're planning to set up interviews soon (and that we'll be getting one). There isn't much data for past years at all for Stony Brook, it might be that people didn't report interviews or it could be they've just added them this year. Hard to say.

I have heard of that happening before 😅 stat outliers should always be taken with a grain of salt

I also applied (for fiction) to Cornell, JHU, Brown, and Syracuse, plus Hunter, Pittsburgh, and a handful of NYC-based non-guaranteed-funding schools. Hoping for the best for us both! 🙏 the nerves are really kicking in now that more schools are making moves, but the bulk of results for most of them will likely be late Feb-mid March

CONGRATS!! So happy for you!!

From my Aggregated Data of the past 5 years here and 2 on Draft, Syracuse acceptances tend to be anywhere from early Feb to mid March. In previous years poetry/fiction seemed to send out results in bulk (with acceptances/waitlists/rejections around the same couple days), but in more recent years poetry and fiction seem to be a little separated and I haven't heard any rejections from poetry yet, only an acceptance (and someone mentioning a missed phone call in Draft) so it might be more spaced out this year.

Ahhh, classic imposter syndrome. You are not alone-- such feelings are INCREDIBLY common, even in some of the most successful authors. Lots of well-established authors DO still worry if they're good enough, even if all the signs say they're doing amazingly. Maya Angelou, John Steinbeck, and Neil Gaiman, for example, have all written/spoken about struggling with imposter syndrome. It's very easy, especially as a creator, to compare yourself to others, even as you climb higher and higher and reach goal after goal. In a field where success and what's "good" is highly subjective, there's no objective way to measure skill or progress, which makes it harder to accept achievements for what they are. The way I've dealt with it, personally, starts with a general self-confidence baseline. Not just about writing, but everything. And the way I've increased my self-confidence is by being aggressively positive towards myself. Switching out self-deprecating humor for self-aggrandizing humor, "I suck at everything" for a semi-sarcastic "I'm the best at everything, actually." I catch whenever I'm doubting myself and tell myself "no, actually, that's not true, and there's nothing to support that that could be the case." (Having a strong support network and trusting attitude also helps, but not everyone may have that or be able to use the same strategy I have. I have developed genuine strong self-confidence, but that process can be difficult and take a long time and be different for different people.) Sometimes it helps to logic it out, think about what it would be like if the roles were reversed. If you saw someone else's piece get accepted to a top 100 litmag with a comment like that from the editors, would you think they were being pitied? That they weren't actually good enough to be published there? If you were an editor for a prestigious publication, would you publish bad work just because you felt bad for an author you had no personal connection to? How do you think the people giving you feedback would feel, if they put thought and emotion into their response and you thought they were just pitying and lying to you? How would you feel if someone thought that about the earnest feedback you gave them? Do you really think a whole workshop group and professors and editors, people you know to treat the others around them with honesty and respect, would collectively lie to your face just out of pity? It's not fair to them to doubt all the compliments you get, and most importantly, it's not fair to yourself. Give yourself the same grace you give others. It can be really hard to deal with self-doubt, and take a while to truly build the confidence to shut it down. It's natural to doubt yourself occasionally (and sometimes good, but not to this extent). Sometimes "fake it til you make it" is enough for the time being, and sometimes that helps build genuine confidence. I've seen this tumblr post on switching imposter syndrome for conman syndrome, which may be another way to deal with it but I'm not sure how successful it would be 🤣

Wow, talk about brevity! On one hand that sort of cold impersonality sucks, but on the other hand, I guess it does make it feel more like dodging a bullet as @Rixor said. Congrats!!! That's awesome! I compiled a list of expected response times for the schools I applied to based on the past 5-ish years of data here and the past 2 from Draft, so I might as well share that here! I don't know about any other schools, though. PITTSBURGH: Interviews offered late Jan-early Feb, results by late Feb/early March [interview requests started going out on Jan 30] CORNELL: Early Feb-Early March, usually mostly late Feb SYRACUSE: Early Feb-mid March, usually in bulk with some waitlist outliers later MANHATTANVILLE: Acceptances rolling starting mid-Feb, funding decisions mid-March [Heard directly from program director] JOHN HOPKINS: Mid Feb-mid March, acceptances/waitlists usually before rejections NYU: Mid Feb-mid March, has trended later and into early April in recent years HUNTER: Mid Feb-April, interviews/acceptances usually earlier (not likely to be too early this year) STONY BROOK: Early March acceptances (rolling). Not much data BROWN: Early-mid March BROOKLYN: Early-mid March interviews and acceptances/waitlists, late March rejections COLUMBIA: Early-late March

I'm sure you're right, I'm just getting paranoid in the waiting 😅 well, at least if I get rejected from everywhere I applied, I can blame it on that instead! Surely my app is perfect otherwise LOL 🤣

I just had a realization... When listing colleges attended, I've just put my alma mater which is the only school I actually attended, but I have 3 credits from a college-level course I took in high school on my transcript that's marked as being from the college the course was done through. Should I have been putting that school in the system on apps? I really hope that won't affect my chances but now I'm concerned 😰

I just got an email from Columbia about a separate financial aid form that's due tomorrow that I don't remember seeing before 😭 And it requires you to list out your financial plan to fund your education... the basic truth is, if I don't get near-full funding, I cannot afford to go to Columbia. But I can't exactly put that, can I? I'm not sure what to tell them... I probably shouldn't have bothered applying there at all, since it's so ridiculously unaffordable, but I hoped I'd find out about acceptance and award offers before having to fill out something like this.

I think that was the only one that went through Grad CAS for me, so I wasn't sure 😅 I'm sure it's fine as long as it says it was submitted. If we don't hear anything in half a month or so we can always contact them and make sure they went through lol. Same to you, best of luck!! 🙏🙏💜 EDIT: I just double checked and I DID get a gradcas submission confirmation email, it just doesn't specify which school. Check to see if you got anything like that maybe?

Now that you mention it, I didn't get one either 🤔 I guess Grad CAS doesn't send emails, maybe? I guess it's supposed to be the portal too?