Ogwick

Just to echo this point above: obviously everyone in this thread wants to get into a grad school this season. Why else apply? But don’t seek your personal validation, happiness or sense of self from a certificate, job, or even a long career. If you’re ultimately rejected from all schools this season - screw them, and publish anyway! You don’t need a MFA certificate to let others hear your voice.

Congrats!!! That’s great news

I think calls will officially end by Tuesday of this week. Maybe some calls on Sunday, but with a Nor’easter hitting the east coast I could see many calls getting pushed to Monday / Tues to wrap up - just a hunch and estimating how long it takes one person (Ms Chang) to call 25 people (4 business days?) - you need time to breathe and walk between each of those conversations I bet (not robo calls etc).

https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-job-market-english-majors-humanities-demand-2026-2 Just saw this article (copy / paste to read it) with the title “Revenge of the English Majors” and mentions several creative writing schools many have mentioned in this thread. Most of you are humanities undergrad majors so you have lived in this world forever, but as a math / engineer nerd I have to admit this article helped explain (to me) how / why I wound up here in the application towards a MFA degree I never saw coming. As I said in an earlier post I was never going to get into a program like Iowa, but I wanted to go through the process, to embrace real human emotions and voice in a world quickly becoming robotized. Coming back to why I posted this article here: I wonder if there will be more applications than average this year to MFA programs because of this trend towards the humanities.

I have yet to believe Iowa is calling in earnest. I believe we would have seen more posts and activity if all the calls were made

If you applied to Iowa as well (assuming you did based on another post), know that one of the Deities in my thesis is named Mårrs - so take that as a “good Iowa sign” that you have that mentality in your name! Trying to hang our hat on something to get through the weekend…

No - to call 20+ people takes more than just Thursday or Friday (2 days) this week. Another poster said historically Iowa stretches this out over multiple days. I’m giving myself to middle of next week. Then I think the calls will be done.

Congrats!! Excited to see these acceptances

And more than one Iowa call

Do we have high confidence this single report (single call) happened today? first year I’ve been on this website but it seems these happen in “waves” not a single reported call at 11am EST and the nothing else…

Ok - having never applied to a grad school before, and knowing I’ll never get into Iowa - I’m glad to also know I’m not the only one slowly going crazy on the East Coast. FYI - someone on the page before who seems to know what they’re talking about says Iowa drags this out over days - which makes sense because of how many calls they have to make. or at least I’m giving myself to the end of the week

I wish I had those kinds of problems!

I’m rarely on Facebook / we have Iowa Fiction phone calls and acceptances confirmed today?

I’m a cheesehead who went to Northwestern now living in Ohio - so consider the source (Personally I’ve never gotten the whole Ohio vs Michigan thing - not like WI vs Chicago - that’s serious…) My take on the whole “won’t take MI resident apps” - Michigan (especially at the grad level) wants to be known as a “top 5 destination uni” not a “state school”. meaning - it’s a well known trick to move to MI for a year, claim residence, then apply for instate tuition at the undergraduate level - the cost diff is like $300k?! That bias of “we draw everywhere and esp outside our own state” I think percolates up to the grad level too Just my tainted Ohio perspective…

I hope you wind up at UW-Madison / I love it there! Grew up an hour east of there in Cheeseland. FYI - I hope you have been exposed to cold weather before you venture up to the Great White North…

I’ve never applied to a grad school before (at these levels) and so it’s a fun new experience for me to see these acceptances. Congrats to you too!!

Congrats!! I’m waiting to hear back on Iowa (Fiction) - only school and program I applied to. I told myself I wouldn’t get in but enjoy the experience (deadlines to write anything decent enough to share with someone else)

Congrats!!!!

“Idaho and Montana drop their acceptances around this time” Also it’s about time to fly fish in both locations around this time! Before summer snow melts

The earliest calls from Iowa could come this week

You would also make a good predestinationalist Presbyterian Calvinist minister too…

I keep telling myself “only an idiot thinks he/she will get into Iowa. You did this to say you at least tried.” That’s my mantra

What is considered a pessimistic opinion to the young is considered an accepted fact to the gray haired. Socialkonstruct and I are of similar ages and ‘real world’ experiences to see how the games of life are played. One of the reasons I can get along so well with the anti-capitalists (even though I am a self described one myself) is that I completely agree with most of the fundamental theories. My attitude is more of a “infiltrate and change from within” vs outside opposition like socialkonstruct is taking. A different life mode - but one I can understand and see a consistent philosophy at work (even if I disagree with the action steps from the facts)

I find this a fascinating thread and discussion. The best works of literature have always been written in this mindset! Starting with Dante giving a middle finger to the Catholic Church in his Divine Comedy. Writing and the creative arts (should be) a way to express a thought or an idea into a population because you want your thoughts, your voice, to transcend the limitations of your agency in life. Unfortunately a post WW2 “academic machine” was set up in the 20th century when school administrators realized they could keep increasing tuition, and offer majors on any subject they wanted (ie who cared about ROI - it’s the knowledge itself that is the value, etc) and the government would bank loans to any amount the school would charge. Obviously this is unsustainable and this era / this decade is the period when that academic machine falls apart, and the Creative Arts is no longer a “career decision” but purely a creative, political or artistic in itself exercise. Not good. Not bad. Just reality.

Thanks for that link to the article in higher ed - that was well written and researched and asked all the right questions. Everyone in the creative industry, from film, writing or dance, has its legacy founded in the great boom of television dollars in the 1950’s/60’s. Suddenly large American soap , car and processed food companies had a “new tech media app” to funnel huge amounts of dollars into producing TV and movies for ONE REASON - to sell shit on commercials. Remember - this is an era when nothing was “rerunned” - everything had to be new each week to show on TV. Once the need for 32 live eps a season went away in the 21st Century, so did the advertising dollars funding all these writers, camera operators, directors, dancers, etc. - the production of pilots (new shows) alone was a huge industry paying a lot of people a lot of money and those shows never made it on air. Bottom line - all of us under-estimate the seismic shift that is occurring right now before our eyes. For those that are “rejected” I would say take it as a sign to directly publish immediately and screw waiting for two years of more bullshit before the world hears your voice. Screw the academics - write without them!