rapunzel

that's amazing! how did you run into him??

lol i envy your insider knowledge 👀

maybe it's 1200 total (fiction + poetry + interdisciplinary) ?? i dunno

is it a fully funded program? (i.e. full tuition coverage + living stipend)? if so, it might be harder to make a case; even if the stipend isn't great compared to the city you're in, they believe it's enough to just get by on if it's not, you might be able to bring up the situation with the director of the program? but i'm not sure i've heard people say that it's not really something that's strictly upheld except in certain situations, but i also don't know if it's worth the risk, though i don't have experience obviously

except, everyone at brown is fully funded + stipend :/// it's not like nyu or something

it's weird -- someone on here said they got the call, but a day or two later someone else got insider info saying no acceptances had gone out yet, so i have no idea lol

i think funding is huge for a lot of people, and funding can compensate for a lack of well-known faculty / well-known alumni when it comes to reputation. i think uva and jhu are the best examples of this -- not to say that they aren't fantastic programs on their own, or that their faculty/students aren't spectacular, but more so that people are willing to apply to these even if they haven't really heard much about their faculty/alumni, because their great funding allows them to be super selective some others, like syracuse, are fully a faculty thing. people love saunders enough to overlook the funding i guess? but in general, for programs in boston or new york, unless they're exceptionally well funded, the stipend is usually only enough to barely get you buy, and sometimes not even that (depending on your offer) others are well-reputed because they're old. so if you take a program like iowa that's been around for a hundred years (and that too, was around before any other programs were around), it makes sense that tons of good writers emerge from that program because 1) for a while it was the only one, and afterwards its reputation drew well-known writers back as faculty, and 2) the fact that it's been around for so long and that its cohorts are relatively large means it's churned out a LOT of students, so naturally we would hear some percentage of them even if the majority aren't major literary superstars

well... i'd say that you'll soon have escaped the chaos and torment of the waitlist game ? though i guess that could go either way

if you don't mind sharing, what program / what faculty member(s)? and what were the weird vibes?

sorry, just wanted to chime in and ask this again! good luck to everyone for this week!

out of curiosity, people who've done workshops with other mfa applicants, did you see any correlation between the people who've been accepted to one or more programs and their age (years of life experience since undergrad)? (asking for fiction but open to discussion about any genre!)

is it weird that i'm hoping my waitlists and last school don't accept me? like i'm looking back over my submission and thinking, wow i could've done better on my own, i feel like i shouldn't be going to a program until i've stagnated on my own lol

does anyone have any advice on finding "good readers" (professors / mfa students) willing to help you out, especially if you don't have too many connections from your undergrad? it seems wrong to cold email writers you like and just stick your stuff in their faces...

three years is also especially important to me, because i want to focus on pedagogy! sometimes leadership roles scare me lol so i need all the help i can get

i think 5 to 5.5k is like, my upper limit. usually i'm sitting somewhere between 3.5k and 5.5k lol but i think it also comes from the subject matter? usually when i'm working on a short story there's only one thing at the center of it, and i don't think i've ever written a short story with more than 4 characters total (usually 2-3)

everyone saying they're good with novels--HOW. i think short fiction works for me because i can hold the whole thing in my head while i'm writing, whereas with a novel there's obviously so much space and so much i feel like i have to say that i'm truly incapable lol

i wouldn't take it too personally! especially for schools that don't have ranked rejections, the absence of a "please apply again" might just be due to our current administration and an ongoing concern about funding in the future i mean, not that that's any better news, but

what is the "we didn't like you that much" letter?? did they say that?? 😭

i mean yeah, apparently they are ranked according to someone on draft, but since more than half the people who reported are getting the kinder rejection, i don't know if i'm taking it too seriously

yep! and several people on draft as well i'm more upset that they deadnamed me in my rejection letter--iowa might be "the best" but it kind of makes me wonder about how the environment there might be changing these days lol

i got my doom letter as well! it's really surprising to me that they do ranked rejections if so many people are receiving the "well-received by our readers, some of whom liked it very much" spiel

bruhhh what even is the point of ranking rejections 😭

wait are all rejection letters not the same?? i thought they'd all just be "sorry, not this time, X applicants for X spots"; i didn't think even rejections were ranked!

thank you for your lovely responses @Hjanep @zaira !! it's definitely a cliche to say i'm still in the process of "finding my voice" and often i'm too afraid to write about things that matter to me or that i'm passionate about personally just because i worry 1) that there's not much i have to say that people will be interested in and 2) that even if it is, i'm not at a place in my life or in my writing journey where i'll be able to do them justice. but i guess the point is to go for it anyway? we're all taking huge leaps of faith by even applying to mfas!

wanted to bring this back and ask, like, unique in terms of form? setting? culture? character? something else? i think in my own work my form at least tends to be relatively straightforward, and i guess i would want to know if some of these schools are looking for something else so that i'd know they're not a good fit for me lol