henrystgirl

Alright, here we go (I guess you'd call me "New Genres"): Bard - Rejected UCLA - Rejected Columbia U - Rejected Stanford - Rejected American - Accepted UC Irvine - Accepted Carnegie-Mellon - Accepted I'm deciding between UCI and CMU. I feel very blessed to be making such a decision, but it is very, very, stressful given that it would be better for my family to stay in California. Any thoughts or insights about either program, or the programs in comparison, please email me off-list.

I am applying to MFA programs over 10 years after I graduated from undergrad. I remember the anxiety that came with graduating, feeling like I didn't know what the hell I was going to do with myself. But grad school only delays that question, it doesn't answer it. Honestly, it seemed to me that programs weren't at all interested in artists coming straight out of college. They want artists who have lived and made work and fucked up and tried different directions and know what they want from their work, and that only comes with time and living. One professor told me that it's only relatively recently that younger artists apply to or are accepted into MFA programs--that programs used to be almost exclusively filled with people in their early to mid 30s--and that he can't understand why people would go to school directly out of undergraduate, that he had gone to school at 25-26 and felt like even that was too young. There's some great advice on this list about ways to handle your debt. And please, don't take this the wrong way, but you should just make your work out in the world for a few years. You'll bloom in ways you can't imagine, and you'll return to school with a profound sense of purpose. I promise.

No way. Between my husband and my folks, I'm sure I could get help to pay up. But I've been a working artist for 10 years (though in another field). So I know how hard it is out there. And I'm not putting myself and my husband into mountains of debt when at the end of it, I'm still going to be an artist. Hopefully, a credentialed artist who can teach and bring in a little more income into our family than I have, but an artist nonetheless. You have to be such an enormous superstar to make real money as an artist. Many a famous, well-regarded artist makes (if they're lucky!) a middle-class wage on which they have to support a life of creation. Adding debt on top of that makes no sense to me. It doesn't mean I'll pay NOTHING--I'll suck it up for a few thousand every year. But 50K-100K in debt for grad school, if I'm not going to school to be a doctor or lawyer or businessperson? Absolutely not. And I think it's unconscionable that the programs charge so much.

Hey, folks, New Genres person here. UC Irvine - Accepted via phone (and I found them delightful, even before the acceptance) American - Accepted via phone Carnegie Mellon - Haven't heard from UCLA - Nothing Columbia - Nothing Stanford - Nothing Bard - Rejection via Internet I also just want to say that you shouldn't let school pressure you into making a decision before you're ready. I understand why they want to know quickly so they can work through their wait lists, but at the end of the day, it's your art, it's your money, it's your time.