poeteer

but does that mean it would hurt her chances? not helping =/= hurting. if so, that's weird to me, and actually quite ridiculous, only because (unless they only take students with MA in English degrees) I'm sure they accept students with just a BA in English, as well as students who took two years to work or travel before entering their doctorate. would they reject KendraA for working two years in an office job to pay off her student loans? maybe? I agree with her that an MFA is not preparation for the degree in rhet/comp, but lots of people do activities and seize opportunities that are not direct prep for their Ph.D and it doesn't seem to hurt them. it is sad to me that KendraA would be punished for spending two years partaking of another opportunity before committing herself to the 5+ year Ph.D commitment (and working in a writing-related field, no less, and probably teaching freshman comp), if the rest of her application is sound and demonstrates her commitment and ability to thrive in the field. an MFA is "less academic," and that is a good thing. I don't take offense to that.

to get a CW tenure-track teaching job in CNF, you'll probably need the MFA + at least one book with a decent (indie or commercial) press + some kind of award history, unless your published book is a really big deal. if you want to teach in an MFA program, I suggest getting the MFA first. if you aren't going that route, and you're fine with not teaching CW courses regularly, then skip the MFA and get the Ph.D in rhet/comp. however, if you have a book project you want to finish -- if your writing and that project are important to you and your happiness, or more important to you than your scholarship -- you might want to first get the MFA anyway, because otherwise you'll likely be putting that project on hold for the five years it takes you to complete your Ph.D. the main point of getting the MFA is not to qualify you for teaching but to improve your writing (as well as your creative practice and habits). the MFA itself will never get you a CW job, and it has been that way for a long time. the hard-won book publication(s) (and the recognition it gets, as well as the connections it makes you) gets you the job. the pressure is crazy-making. the path to tenure-track-CW-job is unbelievably stressful. so is the path to tenure-track-English-job. but the paths to each are very different. like anti, I am entering a Ph.D with CW dissertation next year; I am slow and I have not even finished my first book ms. three years post-MFA. after I finish I will need to send it out to contests and presses for lord knows how long, and until I do publish it I am not qualified for a decent academic position. and "qualified" =/= "get the job" since so many people are on the market, and the number is always rising. but I doubt your having the MFA will make you less desirable to Ph.D programs, especially if the MFA gives you the opportunity to teach comp. don't apply to any place that won't fund you fully.

I don't know how the hell anyone gets into the joint MFA/Ph.D at Cornell. getting into either the Ph.D or MFA at Cornell is a feat by its own right (the Cornell MFA is also extremely selective in part because it has some of the best funding in the country for the degree: a very high stipend for the area + the option to stay and teach for the same $ up to two years if you need to). and you need to get into both! one other option is the UW-Madison Ph.D's minor in creative writing -- you produce a scholarly dissertation but a fair portion of your coursework can be MFA workshops.

fair enough! it's just that the trajectory of your post went like this: "absolutely hell no, I don't want to be a writer -- I hate creative writing programs, mainly because the writers at my school suck." it links the ideas, even unintentionally. regardless I just find MFA-hate annoying so maybe I'm a little sensitive.

a good deal of successful writers of any era are "goddamn awful." but your line of thinking is odd to me. the act of creative writing in itself =/= creative writing programs, even in our heyday of MFA programs. and the creative writing program at your one school =/= all, or even most, creative writing programs. especially if the program at your school does not have the funds or presence to attract the best writers. your "hell no" reaction is also odd, as if you'd rather be a leper than a contemporary writer (and only two years post-passion)…because some writers at your school are bad?

That's how I considered the CW Ph.D when I was finishing up my MFA. I said I would never get one, made fun of them, etc. I had two fellowship years afterward, and that was wonderful. And now what am I supposed to do? I've had a job for a year and it sucks. I'm 27, still finishing my first book, and I only qualify for crappy adjunct positions. While I'm trying to finish my book and get it out there, I'd rather be a TA/student -- at least that comes with health coverage. As an English Ph.D, you'll see what it's like to be out in the world after your degree in a job market that's still a lottery game for people with accolades and publications galore -- not pretty. MFA graduates who should be on the job market are applying for CW Ph.D programs because they can't find work that's worth it. edit: also the CW Ph.D program is no longer a "new thing" -- it's not "trying to devalue" the MFA. it's been an option for a long time, but it wasn't popular until recently. The economy -- and humanities cuts across the country -- has done that for the MFA.

Creative Writing Ph.D programs exist -- I'm headed to one. I guess it's technically "English Ph.D with creative writing major field and creative dissertation" but, really, it's a CW degree and I plan to list it as such on my CV. With the CW job market the way it is now, more and more people are going that route post-MFA.

re: the OP, I think that it's fine to "negotiate" with your first choice if they have offered you little to no funding, or their lowest funding package that's fine but not great (and you have one on the table from your #2 choice that is great in comparison, like, maybe at least $5K more a year for your stipend and/or a lower teaching load). However, if they've already offered you departmental top-off funding and/or a reduced teaching load -- better funding than some of your potential peers received, even if it doesn't match your better offer from another school -- I wouldn't push it. They've already reached out to give you something special; if you're so concerned with extra $, just go to the school that offered you more. As for the funding from the grad school itself, e.g. a Dean's Fellowship, they can't do anything about that.

Did you try calling or emailing Columbia? I'd do that, as well as ask UPenn for a SHORT extension.

If this were for a Ph.D at Yale, or if UW wasn't funded, I'd say definitely back out of your commitment. but I think the UW two-year funded MA sounds like a better decision if you want to go on for the Ph.D. consider that you'll need to start applying for the Ph.D in the fall semester of your first MA year. won't you just be using the same materials, somewhat revised? you won't be able to bring much new perspective to the process. I think applying in the fall semester of your second year gives you a better leg up than the Yale name, and any letter of recommendation from a professor there (big name or not) would come after knowing you for only a couple months. so, I vote UW. (also consider that it is bad form to back out of a funded commitment this late without a very good reason.)

I'm having the same experience with the Creative Writing Ph.D at FSU, and others are, too. I got some evasive (but stock, clearly prepared and copied and pasted) waitlist-implying email back from the coordinator after I finally emailed, with a note to contact the director with questions. Well, of course I had questions, because the email was totally vague. Emailed the director, and no response. It's just rude. Why don't they just officially waitlist people? Why can't they answer a simple email with a straight answer?

NOT TRIP'S BOAT

is UT-Austin comparable? or is it a pretty different package you're considering?

What's the teaching load and stipend after the first-year fellowship? If you don't mind sharing. Just curious.

If you can't do that, I think teaching the 1/2 comp during coursework, and then teaching 2/2 lit during exams and diss, is probably better than teaching 1/2 comp all the way through. For the experience.

EXACTLY. I get a little angry when people say that the reading comp on either the GRE or GRE Lit is a valuable indicator of, well, anything relevant to graduate study. ETS's "best answer" is not necessarily the best, and I found that in nearly every case, there were three answers that were definitely incorrect, and two that could be correct or "best." this is unreasonable, imo. my test was probably 75% reading comp. of long, dense passages. and hardly any of the material the PR book suggested I know was on it. I think PR, Vade Mecum, all my Norton reading, etc. gave me a false sense of security. my test was not like any practice test I had taken, and it definitely did not adhere to the structure/content proposed by those sources. I would agree the test has changed drastically, and that the prep material is outdated. yes, memorize facts and passages and literary terms (perhaps less common ones, as I had a few on my test not covered in PR, Vade Mecum, or Abrams' Glossary of Literary Terms, or any other prep sites I visited), but also look hard at the GRE reading comp questions and make sure you know how they "think" (i.e., there will frequently be two answers out of five that are potentially right, so make sure you know which is the "very best" answer and why). also, I would bring out Paradise Lost and practice locating various grammatical units (such as the subject of a long, clause-riddled sentence with complicated syntax, something that might be hard to do quickly if it's the last answerable question on your test and you have 10 more seconds to answer it). I think books like the PR may have actually screwed future test takers. PR tells you to study works of literature and theory with which any entering Ph.D student should have general familiarity. they explain that the exam is primarily a test of encyclopedic knowledge, like some stupid cocktail party. well, if everyone studies that way, there won't be as wide a distribution of scores. it makes sense that ETS has changed things up a bit since information about the test has been so widely disseminated. but the problem is that now the test seems less comprehensive, and also tricky for the sake of trickiness. some of the questions (too many, on my exam!) test your knowledge of obscure factoids only a specialist of the period or author or area is likely to know. others test your ability to read exactly as the testmakers want you to (sometimes the difference between a "right" and "wrong" answer is great and obvious, but other times slight, and you can easily find yourself waffling between the two for precious minutes). this makes the test more difficult, so that the people who do well on it are surely knowledgeable (maybe some had a lucky day and got the best questions for them, but it's safe to say that the majority of people getting very high scores know their stuff!). but at the same time, I think a poor showing says even less about the applicant's base knowledge of major literary traditions and criticism than it ever did before. (in the end, I did about average on it. not too great, but not too low. I'm not an extremely fast reader and under that pressure I ended up reading some long passages twice! maybe three times. not a good thing, because I had to leave too many questions blank. unfortunately this is the hardest type of question to prep for, because not too many practice tests exist, and the ones that do are not asking you to read as much as I had to read in the time allotted. maybe if I hadn't spent all that time making useless flashcards, ala PR's brand of advice....bah.)

Alabama is a fully-funded program for everyone, so you'll get funding if you get off the waitlist. probably not a special additional fellowship on top of a TAship, but definitely a TAship. good luck.

why did people ding you?

the GRE won't keep you out of prestigious schools like Yale and Brown and Cornell--schools with English programs that have a lot of autonomy. You can bet Mr. Grimwig beat out plenty of people with extremely high scores AND extremely good writing samples to get his spots at Columbia and Brown, so I'm not sure I agree that a high GRE "distinguishes" you. I really don't think they care beyond a certain point. but Ido think the GRE could potentially keep you out at some schools that rely more on school-wide fellowships and the like to fund students, i.e., where the funding is a more complicated song and dance. these fellowships are often open to all disciplines (or sometimes all humanities disciplines) and sometimes have higher composite GRE expectations. I think 99% of English faculty do not care about your score beyond a certain bar. but sometimes the university does when it comes to funding. you could get waitlisted or rejected because of the way the funding went down that particular year (when in another year you may have been accepted). that said, at these schools, they aren't going to even bother putting your application in the pool for fellowships if your SOP and writing sample aren't up to snuff. and they certainly aren't going to give you a spot on their own dime. so, work on those first and more often. and if you realistically can't get a high GRE score, that's okay. most of us can't and we still get in. I would have needed to hire a math tutor to pass 600Q, let alone 650 or 700, because I get confused teaching it to myself (as evidenced by my math score in the 25th percentile, whoops...). I'm only saying that it's good to have these bases covered if it's reasonably possible for you to do so. also, I'm not on faculty at any department, so maybe I'm wrong about all this. disclaimer.

Yes, I feel the same. I love NYC, but it is not where I'd personally want to be doing Ph.D coursework and exams. I think it would be an overwhelming place to be in an overwhelming time. I think NYC is best when you're bumming around and have the time and headspace to really take advantage of all it has to offer. However, if you can be on fellowship until your third year, that does change things! You will have much more time to devote to your work (and more to play, too). If the funding is enough to live on in NYC, that's a pretty awesome deal. Not many places allow you to start teaching whenever you feel like it (or not at all! which wouldn't be wise, since you should get a bit of experience doing it, but damn). It's almost as if NYU anticipated the stresses of its location. It's also true that NYC is more likely to have archives you'll want to visit, as well as (as lyonessrampant said) more intellectual, cultural, and academic resources in general. But can you visit NYC? Maybe they can scrape up some money to help with your flight?

I applied to the Creative Writing Ph.D and haven't heard anything, either. I've seen acceptances and rejections in my genre. I wonder if I'm on some non-notified waitlist, too? Why don't they just tell people they're on a waitlist?

I think most stipends would be enough for a studio apartment, at least those in towns and small-moderate sized cities. I can't live with a roommate! I'd rather have a little more credit card debt than a roommate.

when you apply, your funding award (especially if not everyone gets one!) will actually look better on your C.V. than the name of your M.A. someone believes in you enough to give you full funding plus extra money and teaching experience for the future -- that means a lot. bonus: no crippling debt. go with the funded M.A for sure.

Can't you defer them and just keep paying what you can? That way you're off the hook, in case you're having a rough month?

congrats, hellodog! I'm assuming you mean for the Creative Writing Ph.D. alas, I'm waitlisted in poetry.