zaira

Some programs accept in waves, yes. Most don't. It usually goes something like: acceptances clustered around the same day, then waitlists, then rejections. A few days or even weeks can pass between acceptances, waitlists, and rejections. Some programs waitlist and reject on the same day. Some accept and waitlist on the same day. It varies. You can see what each school tends to do if you look at past Draft notifications. For anyone expecting a Minnesota rejection soon, sending you lots of internet hugs. We're still so early in the season so please don't lose hope!

Not cooked, far from it! I'm not just being nice either. It's pure pragmatism. Competition and acceptance rates mean nothing when your work is being judged subjectively. People have been rejected from less competitive programs and accepted into far more competitive ones. Don't count yourself out so early in the season.

Likewise, friend! If it helps, I'd imagine most of us will have the majority of our answers by the end of this month, save for a few schools that report in early March. Only a few weeks more! You got this.

I'M SCREAMING

Adding to the chorus of congrats!!! Fantastic start. Hoping for plenty more good news for you over the next few weeks!

There's just one on Draft for right now! A fiction applicant got an email.

Massive congrats to the folks who got FSU, UIUC, and Emerson acceptances!!

I like my plane books on the breezy side, or something not too dense on a line by line level. I also like things that lean fabulist, something that transports me. So if this is up your alley too: On the thriller-adjacent end of things you might try Creation Lake, Annie Bot, or Whoever You Are, Honey. On the creepy, weird, surreal spectrum I always like anything by Sayaka Murata (Convenience Store Woman might be the more appropriate plane read than Earthlings, which is maybe too dark). I'm also really enjoying Claimed! by Gertrude Barrows Bennett. And I can't recommend Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin harder enough. What sort of vibe are you aiming for?

That seems likely! I just went with whichever schools I saw released results this time last year tbh. I didn't realize VT's deadline was so much later. In that case, totally agreed, it'll probably be a bit.

Might hear murmurings of interviews from Boise State and some movement on Virginia Tech and U of O. Indiana is also coming up soonish, and Pittsburgh. Things won't really start to kick up until February though.

But also worth noting all UIUC notifications thus far are, afaik, poetry, so it's possible fiction is still under consideration!

Okay, so, take this with a grain of salt -- the really fancy kind with the nice big flakes bakeries sprinkle on cookies. I took a peek at 2024's gradcafe thread. On or around January 18 people received waitlists from UIUC. That puts this year about in line with last year's results. People were also waiting a long time to get UIUC rejections in 2024. It wasn't until January 31st when folks started getting official form rejections, nearly two weeks after initial waitlist notifications went out. Also, I don't know if anyone saw but there is currently a UIUC acceptance for a poetry applicant on this year's Draft spreadsheet. My guess is acceptances and waitlists are already out unfortunately. I would imagine it's the same for Ohio State. Last year they accepted on 1/16 and rejected on 1/19. Again though, I have no insider info, big flakey salt, etc.

I haven't seen any of the second season yet but the first season is mindblowingly good. Highly recommend, perfect distraction, though if you're anything like me you'll binge it in a couple days and need more.

If they've accepted you, they'll find a way to get in touch. People who miss their calls either get voicemails, emails, or portal updates shortly after. No need to pick up spam calls!

The strange thing is for the past two years they've done acceptances first and waitlists second. In the past, acceptances came 1-2 days before waitlists did. Maybe they're doing this differently this year?

Impossible to say. Looked at the notification sheet from past years and I'm seeing mixed results. In 2024 they did all their notifications during the work week. But in 2023 there was evidently an acceptance that came on 1/21, which was a Saturday. I don't think they'll notify people over a long weekend but you never really know.

For real, this process has also turned me into an overthinking mess. I feel you!!

I will say, sometimes the best teacher ends up being the one you least expect. A professor may be producing work that resonates with you, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll give you excellent feedback on your own pieces or explain concepts to you in a way that makes sense. Writing and teaching are totally separate skills. Likewise with a cohort. Some of my best readers, the people I have learned the most from over the years, are peers whose work is completely different from mine. Being unable to connect with someone's work doesn't matter if they offer you excellent feedback week after week. And of course it's just as important to give them excellent feedback in turn, even if you don't personally connect with what they're doing. Gotta take each piece as it comes, figure out what the writer is trying to accomplish, and what they can do to achieve it in the text.

Go for it! They seem open to whatever you feel is your best work. And if they reject you because you included a play among your samples, then it's probably not the best fit for you anyway. You'll want to find a program that digs what you're doing across all of your samples and wants to support you in your vision.

Welp, most app deadlines are officially over (I haven’t forgotten about you folks with January deadlines though, still sending out the good vibes!). Seeing some anxiousness. Very much felt. I wanted to give a little pep talk while we wait for decisions to roll in. No matter the outcome this year, rest assured your writing is enough and you are enough. These are, without exaggeration, some of the most competitive academic programs in the world. We’re dealing with acceptance rates under 5% here—sometimes well under. Getting a rejection is not a full-throated rejection of your writing. Adcoms have impossible decisions to make. What do you do when there are 50 equally-capable writers and only five spots to fill? It means, inevitably, someone talented is going to get cut. In fact, a lot of talented people are going to get cut. There’s not much to learn from MFA rejections. For all you know, the adcom came *this close* to putting you on a waitlist but simply ran out of space. Adcoms can adore your work and still be forced, by sheer cold numbers, to tell you no. Please give yourself a nice big helping of grace. Pile that shit on. Don’t you dare give in to negative self-talk, even if things start to look bleak come February. Earlier today I was ruminating on the if-onlys: I wish I’d spent more time on my samples, more time polishing my SOPs, submitted that third story, written that Mysterious Fourth Story That Surely Would Have Impressed Everyone, on and on. But here’s the truth: none of that would have guaranteed me a spot. No amount of obsessive polishing will get around the fact that there are tons of amazing writers who deserve to get in, and programs can’t accept us all. I did enough. You did enough. No, really, you, the person reading this, I want that to sink in. You. Did. Enough. I’m rooting for every single one of us to get into a program that’s a perfect fit. And if it doesn’t happen this year, there’s always next year. Unless you’ve decided you’d rather enter a thumbtack-eating contest than go through this process again (understandable). In the meantime, take a well-earned nap, lovelies! Go do something fun.

Okay, I know this is so stressful, but it's moments like this when you just gotta laugh a little. That placeholder is fantastic. You can and should email the program ASAP to see if you can replace that statement with the real one. Shit happens. You're not the first or the last to make this exact mistake. Worst case the admissions department says you can't swap it out and you'll be in the same position you are now. Best case, they give you the opportunity to swap. FWIW, really, truly, the statements are a small part of the application. Don't sweat it. If your samples are amazing this isn't gonna matter, I promise.

Yep, same here. I submitted the same two samples for every program (about 20 pages total) regardless of max page count. Adcoms seem to prefer candidates who lean, well, "lean" than candidates who pad out pages.

Um, THIS SOUNDS SO COOL! I adore Dictee. Brown feels weirdly more intimidating than some of the other programs. They have this reputation for being experimental and cross-disciplinary and I feel like a lot of us aren't sure if we fit into those categories. I really hope you get in mainly because it would be so cool to see what you do with those photography/lit hybrid projects. Brown or bust, let's go!

Your undergrad major doesn't factor in at all, so long as your writing sample's good. All fully-funded programs are competitive, yeah. That said, they're not equally competitive. Some schools get less attention than the top programs, so the applicant pool is a little smaller. For example, Brown gets something between 900 and 1,050 applicants and only admits five. UNCG probably gets fewer applicants and admits 10-12. Is it worth trying for Brown? YES, VERY MUCH SO. Five people will get into Brown. You may very well be one of those five. I saw someone last year who got accepted into Brown and rejected from many of the other top programs. You never know which program is gonna vibe with what you're writing. I wouldn't base your apps on acceptance rates. Go with the ones you feel are the perfect fit for you from an artistic standpoint. You only do your MFA once! It's hard to give more specific advice on program selection since it's such a personal thing. What's right for me may not be right for you, etc. Best of luck!

Submitting three applications within the next 24 hours (right under deadline, yeesh). Fellow procrastinators unite! The rest will go out sometime early next week so I can stop thinking about this process for a while. My TBR shelf is so neglected. Gonna finish Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner, then I'm gonna finally get around to Orbital by Samantha Harvey and Speedboat by Renata Adler. Or I might just eat a lot of burritos and go into hibernation. We'll see.