OctopusCactus

He posted on his substack this week that he's been kicked out of NYU.

NYU's given him the boot. Good riddance.

While ideally you would have recommenders who can speak to your writing skills, professors (or even professional colleagues) who can speak to things like your work ethic and ability to succeed in a competitive grad program could also be valuable. Since you're already thinking next cycle, you could also go to a writing conference or retreat, or take a writing class between now and the fall with the goal of getting a strong letter out of it. That's what I did.

IMO prestige is largely a question of audience. Prestigious to who? On Draft and this forum, which are composed almost entirely of current and aspiring MFA students, things like high stipends and small cohort size factor heavily into how prestigious a program is perceived to be. This makes sense because these are communities where people actually know how much different schools pay in stipends, how hard they are to get into, etc. But that isn't universal knowledge, even within the literary world. TBH I have been surprised by the gap between what programs people I know in the lit world talk about/attended and which programs on Draft are regarded as prestigious because it's mostly not the same programs (with the exception of Iowa). These people don't know about stipends, they know more about who teaches where and successful alums. So for them prestige seems to be more about faculty than anything else.

The acceptance call is the program is trying to win YOU over. Don't stress! Your work is done. They want you to choose their program. It is truly an opportunity to ask any questions you actually have about the program that would factor into whether you accept their offer or not. If you don't really have questions you could just say thanks and express interest. The faculty members who called me were really nice and were patient with my questions. They do these calls every year, they know they're a big moment for us and that a lot of us get flustered.

I initially struggled in college, which left me with a checkered transcript before I dropped out for a few years. During my drop-out years I worked a, uh, colorful job which I wrote about in my app package. I got into multiple competitive MFA programs in the last cycle. I think acknowledging that you have a wild or challenging backstory can be okay in this context, or even advantageous, as long as you can demonstrate (not just state) that you are in a solid, stable place today.

I interviewed for two programs last year. One was really low-key and conversational and I got into the program. The other was very formal and honestly kind of snobby and I left the interview thinking I would not attend if accepted. Didn't get into that one. Be prepared to talk about what you're reading and why it's made an impression on you. Be prepared to talk about what you intend to work on if admitted to their program. Be prepared to talk about what your current writing practice looks like.

The advice I was given was that it's more strategic to submit several short works rather than one long novel excerpt. The reason being that with a novel excerpt all your eggs are in that one basket. Whereas if you submit a few short stories (or essays depending on your genre) if one doesn't quite land with the adcom maybe others will. I took this advice, applied with shorter pieces, and had successful apps. Obviously always submit what is truly your best work, but if you're already thinking about next years cycle yes working on short stories sounds like a smart idea.

Current MFA student here. I knew I wanted to do a creative writing MFA because I felt it provided the best opportunity to develop the book I'm working on. I'm not interested in writing for the screen so no debate there for me. I will say the people I observe struggling in my program tend to be the people who are not yet sure what kind of artistic output they want to make, so good to get clear on that before you start. As for recommendation letters, it's important to stick to what schools ask for with all application materials, so don't include any extra letters. Recent screen-writing colleagues could be great recommenders. The general wisdom is not to use peers as recommenders unless you have no other choice. Writing your own letter is risky and IMO not worth it. The people reading it will be writers who have had the chance to get very familiar with your writing via your app. Admissions committees are pretty good at telling who wrote their own letters and it's a bad look if you get caught. Jumping between programs...you would have to do an entire new app cycle unless all you wanted to do was switch from like fiction to nonfiction (which some programs do allow). I've heard it can be harder applying as someone dropping out of an MFA than applying without having started one, because programs see leaving another degree program as a red flag.

Do you know about app fee waivers? Many schools (including Iowa) waive app fees if you can provide some documentation of financial hardship. Worth checking out, just give yourself time to fill out that additional bit of paperwork and get it submitted in time.

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.