2021 Applicants Forum

[Ydrl]

Just now, oubukibun said:

Well, it took 9 months from the application to the acceptance in the Peace Corps; I swear they knew everything there was to know about me outside of a colonoscopy.

If it takes a year, so be it, because if it means each school has truly curated THE class they wanted, and not just a hopscotch of what they actually read or were told to be interested in...

I don't mind the waiting.  I mind the rudeness of automatedness (which is most likely not a word recognized by any dictionary, but whatevs).

Again, I am painfully aware that you don't mind waiting. I need to know answers before May so I can make plans for how and when and where I can move this year.

4 minutes ago, oubukibun said:

Hiya,

Yes, via mail.  Postmarked the 5th.  Took a while 'cause I'm in South Florida.

I knew I was rejected, and being rejected doesn't hurt.  It's the callousness of being the cog in the machine when they're asking you to stand out somehow and giving you no indication you were even heard at all as you tried (to no avail, mostly) to do just that.

I was nothing but myself in my application for all 4 schools...  So to have each school confirm such a lack of identity or care or even a basic understanding of what it's like to be on the other side of pond in even just an email that doesn't read like an automated bot...

That's the real killer.

Your writing wasn't accepted. Not you. I'm sure you're a wonderful person and are committed to your writing. Being nothing but yourself in your application is fine, but separate the art from the artist. Keep writing and reading, it means everything. 

[M-Lin]

6 minutes ago, Nervis said:

Same! Just rolled in. It's...uh...stark. 

Haha I’m surprised that I’m surprised ... after spending 4 years of undergrad there, I should have expected this kind of tone ?

[oubukibun]

14 minutes ago, SofiTheCatGuardian said:

I completely get it. Feel everything you're feeling, but don't give up because of this round. Look at me: I've pretty much given up any hope of getting in to the 11 schools I applied to. Now admittedly they were mostly all hoity-toity and I might have been kidding myself in the first place, but it's a learning experience for the next round. I'll mix in more state schools and apply to some of the harder to get in ones too. And I've also learned from these posts I should not have led with my experimental Prologue in a lot (not all) of my submissions. LMAO. Anyways, it's rough. I'm trying to plan my year in case I don't get in anyway to still write my ass off and still find peace regardless. Because honestly if you're a writer, you fucking know. No one can tell you otherwise. And it'll happen. 

I don't write a sonnet a day but I know I'm a poet at heart.  I know that I am happiest when a poem can capture exactly, exactly, the tiny moment I had in my head.  And in a manner no other writing could for me.

This weekend a pal of mine from college read one of my poems (in my portfolio) at his sister's wedding for his reading/toast.  I didn't write that poem for her wedding...  I wrote it so it could just be.

Having that mean more to me than an acceptance, however, does not erase that these grad schools need to get their communication game together right the shit now, haha.

Edited March 15, 2021 by oubukibun

[Cristie]

1 minute ago, oubukibun said:

Hiya,

Yes, via mail.  Postmarked the 5th.  Took a while 'cause I'm in South Florida.

I knew I was rejected, and being rejected doesn't hurt.  It's the callousness of being the cog in the machine when they're asking you to stand out somehow and giving you no indication you were even heard at all as you tried (to no avail, mostly) to do just that.

I was nothing but myself in my application for all 4 schools...  So to have each school confirm such a lack of identity or care or even a basic understanding of what it's like to be on the other side of pond in even just an email that doesn't read like an automated bot...

That's the real killer.

You know, I felt that way about Florida State's rejection...COLD. Like it was nothing. But when I got rejected from Wyoming...it was the nicest and most personal rejection (a letter and an email), even encouraged me to apply again and waived the fee for next time. That might have taken someone an extra minute to type to me. But If I do this again, I'd apply to Wyoming again but never Florida State. All over a few lines and just being decent (and I HATE the cold). It's not like most of these people don't know what rejection feels like (they are all writers!). So I'm split, I I feel your frustration too, but also see Ydrl's point in that I don't want to wait forever either. 

[Ydrl]

1 minute ago, Cristie said:

You know, I felt that way about Florida State's rejection...COLD. Like it was nothing. But when I got rejected from Wyoming...it was the nicest and most personal rejection (a letter and an email), even encouraged me to apply again and waived the fee for next time. That might have taken someone an extra minute to type to me. But If I do this again, I'd apply to Wyoming again but never Florida State. All over a few lines and just being decent (and I HATE the cold). It's not like most of these people don't know what rejection feels like (they are all writers!). So I'm split, I I feel your frustration too, but also see Ydrl's point in that I don't want to wait forever either. 

I totally get the cold rejection letter thing. Anyone who gets a Syracuse rejection knows about the infamous "Dear MFA Applicant" nonsense instead of the person's actual name. I was going to apply again this year, but my recommender told me that if a school won't respect me enough to use my name, don't go there.

[oubukibun]

3 minutes ago, Ydrl said:

Again, I am painfully aware that you don't mind waiting. I need to know answers before May so I can make plans for how and when and where I can move this year.

Your writing wasn't accepted. Not you. I'm sure you're a wonderful person and are committed to your writing. Being nothing but yourself in your application is fine, but separate the art from the artist. Keep writing and reading, it means everything. 

Hey, yes, sorry, please don't read too much into my word choice there, haha.  I'm really not losing my shit here, this is just cathartic for me, and it's a way for me to vomit out the nasty and keep the edible thoughts.

I've always been pretty expectant of life's hard lessons (Church of Sisyphus, remember?), but that's also the hard part of applying anywhere.  End of the day, it doesn't matter to me that I or my writing was rejected, because I'll keep writing for myself as I've always done.

The MFA, sadly, is just a path towards better options for me and my writing future, IF I want that to be my future as a career outside of teaching.

Thank you for the cheerleading, honestly, but I've been rolling the boulder for decades now.  Fait accompli and I are, how do they say...  good friends.

[iai]

Got the rejection for NYU (fiction) /:

*Updates if anyone is interested: The New School replied my email saying decisions go out mid-March (I’m guess the REST of the decisions... but when I checked the website again it said late March.. maybe they changed it?)

University if Guelph (if anyone is applying to Canadian schools): Decisions at the end of March

[scully7584]

I have seen on here that some schools have sent out rejections, acceptances, and waitlists. What if you haven't received anything yet? Waiting on Alabama, LSU, and UF, but I've seen on here that those have already gone out for all categories. I'm just confused. Any insight is welcome. I'm assuming they are rejections if I haven't gotten anything, but still wanted to put this out there.

[Ydrl]

1 minute ago, oubukibun said:

Hey, yes, sorry, please don't read too much into my word choice there, haha.  I'm really not losing my shit here, this is just cathartic for me, and it's a way for me to vomit out the nasty and keep the edible thoughts.

I've always been pretty expectant of life's hard lessons (Church of Sisyphus, remember?), but that's also the hard part of applying anywhere.  End of the day, it doesn't matter to me that I or my writing was rejected, because I'll keep writing for myself as I've always done.

The MFA, sadly, is just a path towards better options for me and my writing future, IF I want that to be my future as a career outside of teaching.

Thank you for the cheerleading, honestly, but I've been rolling the boulder for decades now.  Fait accompli and I are, how do they say...  good friends.

Yeah, I suppose the vast majority of us word vomit on the internet.

I'm hoping to do things outside of teaching as well. Being in the publishing industry sounds awesome to me, and at one point when I didn't know what the hell I was saying, I told my intro to creative writing prof that I wanted to be a literary agent. I still feel that now if I'm being honest.

[Ydrl]

@pattycat @mrvisser I miss you. I won't ask for you to you come back to this chaotic anxiety fueled dumpster fire, but what if...you popped in and said hello? ??? 

[Cristie]

Someone else please admit that they are carrying their phone into the bathroom....Just in case.

lol

[SpaceJunk]

Anyone else not get a rejection (or anything else) from NYU yet?

[lilacbread]

Just now, SpaceJunk said:

Anyone else not get a rejection (or anything else) from NYU yet?

I haven't either! Just checked the portal and it hasn't been updated. (for fiction)

[mrvisser]

5 minutes ago, Ydrl said:

@pattycat @mrvisser I miss you. I won't ask for you to you come back to this chaotic anxiety fueled dumpster fire, but what if...you popped in and said hello? ??? 

Hello!

Don't worry, I still monitor occasionally and from afar.

[goodcynara]

11 minutes ago, Ydrl said:

Yeah, I suppose the vast majority of us word vomit on the internet.

I'm hoping to do things outside of teaching as well. Being in the publishing industry sounds awesome to me, and at one point when I didn't know what the hell I was saying, I told my intro to creative writing prof that I wanted to be a literary agent. I still feel that now if I'm being honest.

@Ydrl: You might enjoy this engaging podcast of Victoria Chang interviewing in-house literary publicist for Copper Canyon Press, Laura Buccieri, who continues to work as a poet and sounds like the loveliest person:

Host Victoria Chang and guest Laura Buccieri, Director of Publicity at Copper Canyon Press, discuss the life of a literary publicist: strategies for gaining reviews, managing author expectations, discovering the story of a book, the longevity of poetry, and Laura’s commitment that every book gets heard. Part 1 of 2.

https://antiochlitcit.libsyn.com/antioch-litcit-3-laura-buccieri

[beefboy]

34 minutes ago, Julie Stiles said:

 

Don't forget EternalWhiteKnight.

That is an aggressive characterization. Here is another one: if you get in off the waitlist, it means they think you have the least merit in the class.

i would love almost nothing more than to have “the least merit” in the class of the school i’ve been waitlisted for, and i’m also very proud to even be waitlisted, i think it can be both of those “over characterizations” without it being necessarily a bad thing. i think it really just comes down to what we like to tell ourselves, something like that can be encouraging and make some writers work harder, but regardless i don’t think there’s any accurate way to measure whether or not something like that is true. it’s all very subjective and also it just doesn’t do us any good to pit ourselves as writers up against each other like that.

[jka0124]

44 minutes ago, Julie Stiles said:

 

Don't forget EternalWhiteKnight.

That is an aggressive characterization. Here is another one: if you get in off the waitlist, it means they think you have the least merit in the class.

 

1 minute ago, jamestrickington said:

i would love almost nothing more than to have “the least merit” in the class of the school i’ve been waitlisted for, and i’m also very proud to even be waitlisted, i think it can be both of those “over characterizations” without it being necessarily a bad thing. i think it really just comes down to what we like to tell ourselves, something like that can be encouraging and make some writers work harder, but regardless i don’t think there’s any accurate way to measure whether or not something like that is true. it’s all very subjective and also it just doesn’t do us any good to pit ourselves as writers up against each other like that.

At this point, just ignore the troll, jamesstrickington. 

Edited March 15, 2021 by jka0124
Clarifying who I’m speaking to

[Jjayy]

Guys, I just got an email from UVA. I'm on the waitlist (Fiction)!

Edited March 15, 2021 by Jjayy

[kraftyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy]

4 minutes ago, Jjayy said:

Guys, I just got an email from UVA. I'm on the waitlist (Fiction)!

Congratulations! Just got a poetry waitlist notification from them as well.

Was yours pretty generic? I didn't get any info about numbers, possibilities, etc, unlike my Hopkins waitlist note.

Also got my Iowa rejection in the mail today, so that's all for me: 1a (VCU), 2w (UVA, Hopkins), 3r (Syracuse, Cornell, IWW). My first round of applications and, while of course I would've loved to get in everywhere, overall I'm delighted with how this turned out!

Edited March 15, 2021 by kraftyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[Jjayy]

Just now, kraftyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy said:

Was yours pretty generic?

Yes, I was just returning to say this. Lol. 

I still haven't heard from IWW, but I'm an international student, so the letter might take a while.

[Jjayy]

4 minutes ago, kraftyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy said:

Congratulations! Just got a poetry waitlist notification from them as well.

Was yours pretty generic? I didn't get any info about numbers, possibilities, etc, unlike my Hopkins waitlist note.

Also got my Iowa rejection in the mail today, so that's all for me: 1a (VCU), 2w (UVA, Hopkins), 3r (Syracuse, Cornell, IWW). My first round of applications and, while of course I would've loved to get in everywhere, overall I'm delighted with how this turned out!

And congrats to you too!  

[panglosian]

Heads up, UVA waitlist on Draft!! No specified genre

[scully7584]

On 2/19/2021 at 9:51 AM, chrisclements said:

Still psyched about Tennessee, don't get me wrong -- but does it seem like there's a really large fiction waitlist to anyone else? i count seven on draft alone... And given the fact that they're only taking *two* fiction applicants for this cycle, i don't know... What do you guys think? Am I overthinking this?

Where did you see they are taking two?

[Cristie]

Aw...a little stroking never hurt anyone. 

(face on fire but had to)

[chrisclements]

5 minutes ago, scully7584 said:

Where did you see they are taking two?

Oof, I don't really remember. draft, I think.