amryfal

And...I'm in OFFICIALLY. I still have to find out about funding, but for now, I'm going to bask in the glory. Thanks to everyone who responded!

and then today i get this email from the MFA program: First, my apologies for not getting back to you sooner. With all the admissions stuff going on it has been very busy here. The first letter you got was your acceptance into the university, YSU, which is not the same as acceptance in to the program. You have to be accepted into both. The letters on decisions for the program just went out yesterday. (I think you will be pleased by your letter.) I am not sure what advisor you spoke to, however, I expect that since he did not have the NEOMFA committee results he meant that you weren't yet accepted or rejected. Your NEOMFA Campus Coordinator should by now have called you to give you the news. Did he? For your reference, your Campus Coordinator, who will also be your academic advisor is ------. He will help you register for classes at YSU and on other campuses, and will help you with all MFA related issues. The Graduate Coordinator for the YSU English Department will be able to help you with YSU related issues. If you'd like a preview of the NEOMFA course offerings for Fall 2012, take a peek at the "Current Students" section of our website. And feel free to call me if you have any problems or questions. All the best. so now it sounds like i'm in? wtf? can i get off this roller coaster now????????? oddly, the campus coordinator who should have called me (and hasn't) is the same one who told me last week that i was rejected...this just gets weirder :/ [edited to fix weird font issues]

Sorry to hear it, nyoung0911, but hopefully you got in somewhere else. kent's not a bad place, but you better believe the funding went to someone's pet MA students. which i'm not >.< i have a hard time believing that my GREs and GPA were that much worse than 8 other applicants, but it's possible. they did try to get me an adjunct class and a partial tuition remission, but i don't know if it's enough to make the politics worth it there...i hate the thought of paying for it, but i'm not sure what else to do at this point. just out of curiosity, did they tell you *where* on the wait list you were? i'm fourth for the last spot, and the three ahead of me are all kent MAs as well...gah. here's hoping everyone gets really good offers from other schools this week.

I finish my MA this semester, and I didn't apply widely this year. My fiancé has a job here, not great, but steady, and I pretty much chose my MA program to be near him and was lucky that they gave me funding. I'm not thrilled with the program or the area, but I've gotten used to it after two years. Of the local universities, my MA institution accepted me--but waitlisted me for funding. I checked with the grad sec yesterday; there are four people ahead of me funding isn't looking likely this year. She said maybe next year, but there's no way to know for sure. The problem is this: I'm in my 30s, it's taken me 10 years to get to this point (long story), and my student loans are...maxed. Even if the department offers me an adjunct gig with partial tuition remission, which they do for those not fully funded, I can manage maybe a year...and that's living really close to ramen for dinner every night, even *with* fiancé's job. If they don't fund me next year, I can't continue, period--not even *with* the adjunct gig. I really hate the idea of starting a program and having to drop out. I could wait a year, reapply to a wider selection of schools, and hope for funding somewhere. Without the guaranteed gig from my MA institution, though, I'm going to be cobbling together a patchwork of community college adjunct positions that will have me driving 80 miles or so in three directions, and the price of gas may well be more than I'll make. Not to mention repaying the student loans. I'm pretty sure I can't get enough classes to improve on the ramen situation, with near-doom hovering over every day a bill comes due. (Story of my life. Higher education was supposed to help that problem. Huh.) My other option is to take the acceptance at my uni, start my PhD, adjunct, pay partial tuition, and use up the rest of my loan eligibility--and apply everywhere for next year, hoping for funding *somewhere* just in case my uni doesn't give me funding to stay in the program. (I have no idea what I'll do at the end of my PhD when I'll need to pay for interview travel, but that's four+ years away, and who knows what will happen--maybe my fiancé will win the lottery :/ .) I would, however, feel absolutely horrible asking my letter of rec writers to write for me to transfer *out* of the program they got me into. I've never felt really at home there and would *much* prefer to get my PhD somewhere else--which of course I can't say, but maybe the financial difficulty is enough to explain it? I don't know. I'm kind of terrified at this point. I know for a fact my fiancé doesn't make enough money to support both of us if I can't get enough money coming in from adjuncting. It sucks to be this close to my dream of getting a PhD and be stuck in a situation that may mean my dreams are over.

thank you. i'm hoping for an email today, but i haven't heard anything yet, so i will contact them. their website is very unclear and said nothing about the potential for an acceptance from the gateway but a rejection from the program...it would have made a huge difference in my plans if i'd known the possibility existed.

Forgive me if this is the wrong place for this, I'm new here. Okay, so because of locational/family constraints, I only applied to two schools this year - the PhD in literature program at Kent State University, my MA school (graduating in May, yikes!) and the North East Ohio MFA in creative nonfiction, through Youngstown State University. The NEOMFA, for anyone unfamiliar with it, is a consortial program run by u Akron, Kent State, Cleveland State, and Youngstown State. To apply, you apply to the graduate school at one of the gateway campuses, and also to the program itself. I also applied for an assistantship, which is why I picked the YSU gateway - it's closer to home. Two years of commuting to Kent to teach (my MA was funded) and take classes...it's hellish, and I wanted to be closer. I got accepted to the Kent literature PhD, but waitlisted for funding. (Really, Kent? I've been teaching there for two years and have an awesome GPA. Basically, the department's way of saying, "Only one prof does what you want to do, and no one else cares about you, please go somewhere else, but if not, we'll take your money, kthx.") I got an acceptance letter from YSU: "You've been accepted into the MFA in Creative Writing! Here's your log-in info and your advisor's name!!!" I was stoked about that, but no word at all on my assistantship application. I waited a while, and finally contacted my advisor to ask who I should contact about the potential for funding. And I got back an email saying "The NEOMFA program did not recommend you for admission. You're welcome to do your MA at YSU." Um. Um. I got an acceptance letter. NOT for the MA. Very clearly for the MFA. And no rejection letter from the NEOMFA program. I'm sure it's a screwup between the NEOMFA committee and the YSU graduate school. YSU has, like, NO admissions standards, so they probably just said, "Sure! You're in!" before waiting to hear from the NEOMFA program. But I'm confused. (And crushed. Let's not forget crushed.) I emailed my so-called advisor *and* the program coordinator, asking--very politely, I promise--how I got an acceptance letter if I wasn't accepted. No response. Now I have to decide whether to take the PhD offer (not my favorite program in the world, honestly--it was a last-ditch application) and try to pay for it somehow and hope to get funded off the waitlist (it happened with my master's)...or if I just adjunct for a while. AAAAAAARGH!?!?! [ETA: I forgot the reason I posted this here was to ask if anyone who was on the waitlist for funding for Kent's English PhD has heard anything.]