OctopusCactus

No one is going to know whether you got a stipend or not, how much funding you received, or whether you paid for the whole thing yourself, unless you tell them.

Margo Steines is a great CNF consultant for MFA apps!

I got the same email yesterday (fiction applicant). FWIW, I wouldn't consider myself to have a multidisciplinary background or to have outlined multidisciplinary ambitions in my original SOP, beyond noting I'd studied something other than English/CW for undergrad and having some volunteer work on my CV. A friend of mine who applied to the fiction track at NYU a few years ago was on the waitlist when the department emailed her and asked if she'd like to resubmit her app for the low-residency program in Paris, which is when she says she knew she wasn't getting off the waitlist. University of Chicago is known for doing something similar with their MAPHs masters program: they email phd applicants who did not get in and suggest they resubmit their app to MAPHS (phds are obviously fully funded whereas MAPH is not and it's quite pricey). Some reporters have called that program predatory in how it recruits, you can read about one take on it here: https://annehelen.substack.com/p/the-masters-trap

They didn't forget, schools just hold some funds in reserve to negotiate with. First offer does not equal final/best offer. I know multiple people who have successfully negotiated better funding for MFAs, and having a fully funded offer in your pocket is a great point of negotiating leverage!

Someone in their MFA program told me that Columbia has a good amount of waitlist movement every year, in part because a decent number of people who get in sadly cannot swing the program with the funding they get offered. So if that's your #1 don't lose hope! Columbia's admitted students event is next week, and they're still in the process of scheduling admitted students' class visits and calls with current students. There will probably be some movement after those events take place.

Tuition. A few people reported getting higher scholarships but from what my friend in that program says full tuition scholarships there are rare. No one in Draft has reported getting full tuition plus a stipend, this year at least.

Yes. A number of people in Draft have reported scholarships, most in the $20-$40k range. Others say they got no funding.

Very much had that "behind from the get-go" feeling myself. But hey, we made it this far and we'll go farther still. Rooting for you too.

Proud of you! Not just the privilege to apply and dream: you were also brave enough to dream something that might have felt pretty unattainable and you're doing the work to get there.

On the topic of feeling ambivalent about "not that competitive" program acceptances: I feel this. These prospective grad student forums have been a really mixed bag for me in that regard. I've certainly learned a lot I didn't know about how this process works and I value that, but as a first-gen student (for college and now for grad school) it kind of blows my mind to read some of the bashing of programs as "not that competitive" if they take more than a teeny handful of students a year. I know it's all relative, but just the amount of credentials and recommendations and work required to even APPLY to pretty much any MFA program weeds out tons of people. This was my first time applying to any grad program and I went into it feeling like "if I get in anywhere it will be an achievement". I'm coming out of it with multiple acceptances, all with at least partial funding, with all this self-doubt because I've learned here that the programs I've gotten into aren't the MOST competitive ones. Trying to re-ground myself in what my offline world tells me: that I put a ton of work into my writing, that I have potential, and that it's been recognized.

Same. But congratulations on all your acceptances! I feel a little silly asking this, but did everyone's Iowa rejection email end with "I and the faculty sincerely wish you all the best with your writing. We will all be looking out for your work!" I've read sometimes the fiction program director personalizes some rejection letters but not sure about nonfiction.