2021 Applicants Forum

[rcsteel]

Okay, so I'm slowly giving up hope for Iowa, Houston, and Hollins (still holding out for a waitlist), so I'm going to go ahead and move on to worrying about other programs (hooray for my mental health). These programs I haven't heard anything about any sort of contact: John Hopkins, Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth, Boston, & Florida. Has anyone heard anything about these programs? Thank you in advance.

[funfettuccine]

6 minutes ago, rcsteel said:

Okay, so I'm slowly giving up hope for Iowa, Houston, and Hollins (still holding out for a waitlist), so I'm going to go ahead and move on to worrying about other programs (hooray for my mental health). These programs I haven't heard anything about any sort of contact: John Hopkins, Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth, Boston, & Florida. Has anyone heard anything about these programs? Thank you in advance.

I think BU tends to notify later. Don't know anything about the others. 

[mrvisser]

15 minutes ago, rcsteel said:

Okay, so I'm slowly giving up hope for Iowa, Houston, and Hollins (still holding out for a waitlist), so I'm going to go ahead and move on to worrying about other programs (hooray for my mental health). These programs I haven't heard anything about any sort of contact: John Hopkins, Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth, Boston, & Florida. Has anyone heard anything about these programs? Thank you in advance.

I haven't seen anything about those programs on here or Draft, so you're still in the clear!

[chrisclements]

Just found out I'm going to get a Truman Capote Literary Trust scholarship from the university of alabama!! ahhh!!!

[teasel]

Just found a rejection from Cornell in my inbox.  I was expecting it but damn, it still stings!! At the same time, it's a relief to be hearing back from places.   Gonna cope with this by buying a new houseplant & hope I don't get too many more rejections (it's already starting to look like a greenhouse in here).    (0a/3w/4r/5p)   

 

 

[teasel]

3 minutes ago, chrisclements said:

Just found out I'm going to get a Truman Capote Literary Trust scholarship from the university of alabama!! ahhh!!!

 

Congrats!!! Well done ❤️ 

[kikis_delivery]

4 minutes ago, teasel said:

Just found a rejection from Cornell in my inbox.  I was expecting it but damn, it still stings!! At the same time, it's a relief to be hearing back from places.   Gonna cope with this by buying a new houseplant & hope I don't get too many more rejections (it's already starting to look like a greenhouse in here).    (0a/3w/4r/5p)   

 

 

hang in there!! i like the strategy of coping through houseplants

[mrvisser]

5 minutes ago, teasel said:

Just found a rejection from Cornell in my inbox.  I was expecting it but damn, it still stings!! At the same time, it's a relief to be hearing back from places.   Gonna cope with this by buying a new houseplant & hope I don't get too many more rejections (it's already starting to look like a greenhouse in here).    (0a/3w/4r/5p)   

 

 

The rejections for me are better than the waiting. That doesn't mean they don't suck, though. 

[CayceCamus]

7 minutes ago, teasel said:

 Gonna cope with this by buying a new houseplant & hope I don't get too many more rejections (it's already starting to look like a greenhouse in here).  

 

 

House plants are life itself though! There can never be enough.

[goodcynara]

6 hours ago, mrvisser said:

It's a Facebook group that's for the same purpose as this site, essentially. But it has a lot of MFA veterans, faculty, etc., so there's a lot of useful information.

Unrelated, dumb question: how does one add the neat footnote containing a list of programs to which one has applied? And what does the "p" stand for? I might have sworn I knew how to use the Internet, but I tried a couple of methods and appear to have failed. Unless y'all can see my list while I cannot?

Edited February 26, 2021 by goodcynara

[mrvisser]

27 minutes ago, goodcynara said:

Unrelated, dumb question: how does one add the neat footnote containing a list of programs to which one has applied? And what does the "p" stand for? I might have sworn I knew how to use the Internet, but I tried a couple of methods and appear to have failed. Unless y'all can see my list while I cannot?

Go to the top right, then account settings, then signature! And the p stands for pending.

[eternalwhitenights]

1 hour ago, chrisclements said:

Just found out I'm going to get a Truman Capote Literary Trust scholarship from the university of alabama!! ahhh!!!

Awwww congratulations!!! So happy for you! ❤️

[goodcynara]

18 minutes ago, mrvisser said:

Go to the top right, then account settings, then signature! And the p stands for pending.

Ah! Merci.

[cecsav]

1 hour ago, chrisclements said:

Just found out I'm going to get a Truman Capote Literary Trust scholarship from the university of alabama!! ahhh!!!

Congrats!! That's awesome!

[rcsteel]

1 hour ago, frock said:

This is like winning the lottery and "learning" the lottery is great for investment. 

This is nothing like that. They’re just saying not to worry too much from what other people are hearing. Goodness, some of you people need to keep your pessimism to yourself.

Edited February 26, 2021 by rcsteel

[eternalwhitenights]

1 hour ago, rcsteel said:

This is nothing like that. They’re just saying not to worry too much from what other people are hearing. Goodness, some of you people need to keep your pessimism to yourself.

This guy is a troll, rc. His name is Marshall. He pops up under different usernames constantly to troll. Sorry you got hit with it. 

[rcsteel]

47 minutes ago, eternalwhitenights said:

This guy is a troll, rc. His name is Marshall. He pops up under different usernames constantly to troll. Sorry you got hit with it. 

Ah, I’ve heard of him. Didn’t recognize this one. Thanks for the heads up.

[babypoet2k]

damn marshall really do be bored as heck huh. cant imagine spending so much time and effort trollin'. i barely have time to check this forum once or twice a day, and im a bored english major who has been at home for a year. also i love how the regulars IMMEDIATELY recognise the troll lol.

anyways, take this a breather. rejections are temporary, and it is okay to be sad about it for a bit. you will move on, and do greater things! congratulations to all accepted folks on here!! way to go!!!! and lots of luck to those with pending decisions and waitlists you're hoping to get accepted from!!!

love ❤️

[eternalwhitenights]

1 hour ago, frock said:

A certain group think developed here. The regulars only post to promise everyone will get in everywhere. Either that or they fall back into vagueness like you do when you promise "greater things." One person reads what the last one posts, and they all start thinking that is normal and certainly true. If you don't make one of these two posts, everyone barks that it must be marshall. 

Look, marshall/frock, one thing I have noticed is that you seem to be coming from a place of pain in your posts. I'm not sure if you're bored, or you're burnt out, or someone told you once that your writing wasn't up to par, or what. I have no idea where your pain stems from, and I don't want to judge you, because I don't know your story. If you want to share anything, I'm happy to listen, if you're going through something, but regardless, just because you're disillusioned, it doesn't mean the rest of us have to be. 

I'm wondering if you're maybe someone that was told it wasn't okay to fail, and you just kind of go through life expecting bad sh*t to happen to you. (Not saying you are; it's just a hunch on my end.) I get it (if that is indeed what you're going through); you know, it took me a really, really long time to forgive myself for some choices I made in my past that went against my values, and sometimes I still struggle with bracing myself for things to just come collapsing down around me again, because hoping again after you've gone through some crap is really, really, really hard, and requires the most courageous thing anyone can do: being vulnerable again. That means you risk, well, risk, and you risk being hurt. If you harden and numb yourself, though, and retreat into your shell, ultimately, you deprive yourself of the depth of the human experience, because in avoiding the pain and numbing yourself, you also throttle your capacity to experience deep, freewheeling joy at its lifesource: your heart. I don't know about you, but living in perpetual gray and trudging through life seems pretty bleary to me.

Ultimately, too, to be even more cliche ?, I think so much of it really boils down to how it is all about perspective. The thing is, life, and people, ultimately, are fundamentally good. I know you've mentioned a couple of times giving "false promises" to people via encouragement; have you thought about reframing that perspective and viewing that expression of positivity from a place of anchoring yourself in a belief that good, that love, ultimately is the force that courses through the fabric of our world, and that it's okay to believe that, in the end, love and hope do triumph, and win? I would argue that asserting that truth doesn't warrant a notion of false promises; it simply means that despair, and hopelessness do not get the last say, and that even if you can't see it in the moment, even if it all looks bleak, lost, thrashed about and gray, hope always finds a place to sprout through.

For a more practical example, think of a rainbow after a storm, or how a forest fire can be regenerative. (In the case of the forest fire process, at first glance, it seems to destroy everything in its path, but what's going on underneath the surface, is that the heat of the fire is actually what activates the melting of the coating of the serotinously-covered seeds in the very plants the fire is burning down in its destruction, and that heat and that force catapults and scatters those seeds into the earth around it, so, in the end, the very element that seemed to destroy the vegetation and the life in the forest, actually, through and in its burning process, activated the release of new seeds and new life in its wake. Even in destruction, new life springs forth.)

I hope that however you have been hurt or are hurting heals, and that you don't stop believing in yourself. I'm just letting you know right now, that none of us on this board are going to treat this process as if everything is effed and there's no hope at all. We're a tenacious bunch, and if you'd like to join us, awesome. If not, I mean, there's no other way to say it, but you're truly just wasting your time on here, because we're not going to entertain or engage with your premise that all is effed when it comes to MFA processes.

I hope you choose to hope, and to have faith in yourself. Sometimes, it doesn't turn out how we expected, but how do you know something better isn't right around the corner, something that may have never been possible if your past plans had succeeded in the interim? 

I hope you have a nice day, marshall/frock, and I hope you don't give up. You're worth more than despair, and so are the rest of us on this forum as well.

Best of luck. ❤️

Edited February 26, 2021 by eternalwhitenights

[Ydrl]

1 minute ago, eternalwhitenights said:

Look, marshall/frock, one thing I have noticed is that you seem to be coming from a place of pain in your posts. I'm not sure if you're bored, or you're burnt out, or someone told you once that your writing wasn't up to par, or what. I have no idea where your pain stems from, and I don't want to judge you, because I don't know your story. If you want to share anything, I'm happy to listen, if you're going through something, but regardless, just because you're disillusioned, it doesn't mean the rest of us have to be. 

I'm wondering if you're maybe someone that was told it wasn't okay to fail, and you just kind of go through life expecting bad sh*t to happen to you. (Not saying you are; it's just a hunch on my end.) I get it (if that is indeed what you're going through); you know, it took me a really, really long time to forgive myself for some choices I made in my past that went against my values, and sometimes I still struggle with bracing myself for things to just come collapsing down around me, because hoping again after you've gone through some crap is really, really, really hard, and requires the most courageous thing anyone can do: be vulnerable again. That means you risk, well, risk, and you risk being hurt. If you harden and numb yourself, though, and retreat into your shell, ultimately, you deprive yourself of the depth of the human experience, because in avoiding the pain and numbing yourself, you also throttle your capacity to experience deep, freewheeling joy at its lifesource: your heart. I don't know about you, but living in perpetual gray and trudging through life seems pretty bleary to me.

Ultimately, too, to be even more cliche ?, I think so much of it really boils down to how it is all about perspective. The thing is, life, and people, ultimately, are fundamentally good. I know you've mentioned a couple of times giving "false promises" to people via encouragement; have you thought about reframing that perspective and viewing that expression of positivity from a place of anchoring yourself in a belief that good, that love, ultimately is the force that courses through the fabric of our world, and that it's okay to believe that, in the end, love and hope do triumph, and win? I would argue that asserting that truth doesn't warrant a notion of false promises; it simply means that despair, and hopelessness do not get the last say, and that even if you can't see it in the moment, even if it all looks bleak, lost, thrashed about and gray, hope always finds a place to sprout through.

For a more practical example, think of a rainbow after a storm, or how a forest fire can be regenerative. (In the case of the forest fire process, at first glance, it seems to destroy everything in its path, but what's going on underneath the surface, is that the heat of the fire is actually what activates the melting of the coating of the serotinously-covered seeds in the very plants the fire is burning down in its destruction, and that heat and that force catapults and scatters those seeds into the earth around it, so, in the end, the very element that seemed to destroy the vegetation and the life in the forest, actually, through and in its burning process, activated the release of new seeds and new life in its wake. Even in destruction, new life springs forth.)

I hope that however you have been hurt or are hurting heals, and that you don't stop believing in yourself. I'm just letting you know right now, that none of us on this board are going to treat this process as if everything is effed and there's no hope at all. We're a tenacious bunch, and if you'd like to join us, awesome. If not, I mean, there's no other way to say it, but you're truly just wasting your time on here, because we're not going to entertain or engage with your premise that all is effed when it comes to MFA processes.

I hope you choose to hope, and to have faith in yourself. Sometimes, it doesn't turn out how we expected, but how do you know something better isn't right around the corner, something that may have never been possible if your past plans had succeeded in the interim? 

I hope you have a nice day, marshall/frock, and I hope you don't give up. You're worth more than despair, and so are the rest of us on this forum as well.

Best of luck. ❤️

As much as I hope that’ll get through to them, I’m 99% sure that person is gonna keep going. If they do, I’m sorry hon

[funfettuccine]

35 minutes ago, frock said:

But here they hardly confine themselves to telling people that admission odds are low, but there is joy regardless. They go much further, for instance censoring truth in the name of the greater good or political correctness.

Suppose someone says that an MFA does not increase your earning power; that the people who went into debt for an MFA universally regret it; that only a fool would pay Columbia $70K/year in tuition instead of applying elsewhere next year. They censor that upon the theory that it could ruin someone’s mood, and true or not, comes from someone in pain.

I mean, I don’t think anyone disagrees with the more factual pieces of this (i.e. the odds are bad), but the points re: debt are not universal. I happen to agree with you personally that going into debt for an MFA is a bad idea, and if someone asked me whether they should do that I would tell them no, but otherwise what they want to do with their money (theoretical or real) is Not My Business. 

And as far as the odds go, like, duh, they’re obviously bad. Everybody knows that; you’re not saying anything groundbreaking. But the fact remains that people are allowed to have hope about their futures, even if that pisses you off, and that those accepted into MFA programs are not mystical creatures who exist on a higher plane, but real people, some of whom even check this forum!

I’m not sure whether I admire your dedication here—ultimately the act of creating multiple accounts solely to try to make MFA applicants feel bad (or SeE tHe TrUtH I guess) is, I have to admit, pretty funny—or feel bad for you, but I suppose that is also Not My Business. So... deuces?

[woweezowee]

38 minutes ago, frock said:

But here they hardly confine themselves to telling people that admission odds are low, but there is joy regardless. They go much further, for instance censoring truth in the name of the greater good or political correctness.

Suppose someone says that an MFA does not increase your earning power; that the people who went into debt for an MFA universally regret it; that only a fool would pay Columbia $70K/year in tuition instead of applying elsewhere next year. They censor that upon the theory that it could ruin someone’s mood, and true or not, comes from someone in pain.

Nobody is censoring those thoughts; it's just that those thoughts are well known by virtually anyone who's spent any time at all thinking about getting an MFA seriously. Pointing out something that everyone knows isn't helpful. It's just harping on basic information that's being presented in the most negative way possible.

For example, yes it's true that Columbia does not offer full funding and that paying their full tuition is very expensive. Is it also true that only a fool would go to Columbia? No. That is an opinion, not a fact. It also assumes that everyone will have to pay full price, or that any specific individual could not afford to pay that very expensive cost.

I didn't apply to Columbia even though it's within walking distance from my home because of the costs. However, I did apply to NYU even though NYU similarly doesn't offer full funding. I decided that it was worth applying to NYU despite the low odds that I could afford to attend because there are not many schools available to me that offer full funding and I wanted to increase the possibility that I would be able to grad school next year.

Result? I have been accepted to NYU with full funding and a stipend.

It was very unlikely that this would happen, but it did.

If I listened to your "truths" I would have cost myself a tremendous opportunity.

Just because something is unlikely doesn't make it impossible. Unlikely things happen, and any honest assessment acknowledges that actual fact.

Negativity and honestly are not the same thing.

I will continue to encourage people to pursue their dreams and passions and I still give them the respect to assume they understand that doing so comes with the risk of disappointment.

[Ydrl]

I hope y’all are reporting instead of trying to reason with the troll. They’re going to do this regardless. Don’t waste your energy. You already have enough on your plate waiting for decisions. If you can’t identify the troll, and someone is being an ass, just leave them alone.

[woweezowee]

The human mind is a truly fascinating instrument, isn't it?

[mrvisser]

1 minute ago, woweezowee said:

The human mind is a truly fascinating instrument, isn't it?

It's an instrument that is all too often out of tune.