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Another day where we are all to remain OPTIMISTIC and positive. I don't want any of you down-talking yourselves today. You are all amazing people and going to get accepted!!!!

 

I'm hoping that @iai and @M-Lin and I and anyone else who applied to Columbia hears back today with good news!

Edited by SMSM1229
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20 minutes ago, SMSM1229 said:

Another day where we are all to remain OPTIMISTIC and positive. I don't want any of you down-talking yourselves today. You are all amazing people and going to get accepted!!!!

 

I'm hoping that @iai and @M-Lin and I and anyone else who applied to Columbia hears back today with good news!

Thank you!!! Same to you!!! 

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1 hour ago, SMSM1229 said:

Another day where we are all to remain OPTIMISTIC and positive. I don't want any of you down-talking yourselves today. You are all amazing people and going to get accepted!!!!

 

I'm hoping that @iai and @M-Lin and I and anyone else who applied to Columbia hears back today with good news!

Thank you ??? Another day of finger crossing ??

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9 hours ago, Gina P said:

Very well, since you asked for commentary, I shall give it. Read this; it is short: http://www.readwriteteach.xyz/uploads/2/2/9/4/22944492/the_knife.pdf

A non-surgeon can follow easily. Yours is much more abstract. It is not possible for a non-gamer to follow.

You seem to be a gamer. It will be hard for you to imagine life before gaming, which is the state of the reader. It took me forever to figure out that apparently these avatar games are called latency games. 

Any allusion to some deeper meaning is delayed till the real world closing scene. You lose the reader way beforehand. 

You should open with a scene. Also, we end with basically no clue why the narrator doesn't like the real world. 

As  you have it, it takes too long for the reader to suspect there might be an attempt at deeper meaning. Like in The Confederacy of Dunces, the deeper meaning is the main guy is sad. So we have some kind of interest in his amusing antics. What is your deep meaning? It needs to be something with big stakes. You have to be really sad for instance. It can't just be "I'm a little bored with the world, but it really isn't that bad. Video games are 1% better, so I'll tell you my meditations on video games." You don't try to resolve any of this until the closing scene. 

In the Knife story, you realize the author thinks surgery is 100 times better than the rest of his life. And you know that from the first line. 

You are also  probably also going to have to acknowledge for the reader that most people will find it sad that the big thrill in the narrator's life is avatar video games. The narrator does not have to agree. He can argue the other way. Unless you are trying to portray him as a poor fellow, he needs to know many will see a video game life as pathetic.  He is not doing something seen as worthwhile like painting, writing, or surgerying. 

"Sometimes I wish it could be that simple in the world without latency. In the running world, I see a hurdle and I jump. If I time it right, I’ll sail right over it every time. There’s no fear, no worry. I just jump."  That first sentence isn't enough for the reader to compare the narrator's real and video game world. 

This isn't long or specific enough of real world stuff: 'I’m wary of that world. The world without latency. My that-world Mom told me that Jamie dropped by again. I thought Jamie had given up a long time ago, like my friends did. I never blamed anyone for that. I gave up on the world without latency. It makes sense that people would give up on that version of me. " I don't know the import of Jamie. Is Jamie a lover? I don't know much about why friends gave up, or what that really means, or why they gave up. 

"The thing is, Jamie and me had something really nice when my stats weren’t so god-awful. But that world is really stupid at stats. You can be doing okay, and have great stats, and suddenly, boom, they all hit zero. One bad moment, and now it’s all zero. Strength? Zero. Stamina? Zero. Speed? Zero. Whatever stat makes people think you’re worth anything? Zero."  This is a big abstraction and generalization. Better to have a real scene. 

Again with this generalization: you need a scene instead: "I’m scared of that world. The world without latency. My that-world Dad keeps trying to get me back into highschool, online this time. He’s still being gentle, but I know how his AI works. First he’ll be gentle, then he’ll get firmer and firmer until he grabs me by the legs, heaves me over his back like a sack of potatoes, and throws me outside until I give in and do what he says. Maybe his pity stat is high enough that he won’t give me the sack treatment. But he will get firm. He’ll make me do it. I already missed one school year. He’s not going to let me miss another one. "

Generally the scene needs to come before the generalization.  Something like "scene being beaten up. It happened three more times that year. 

There is too many words on you fighting the AI. You fighting other people online would be more interesting. Maybe an argument with a troller, or someone claiming to be this babe. You fighting basically a chess program is not that interesting, especially when your not exactly a glorious chess grandmaster, but rather a video gamer. 

The narrator runs into the mother's arms in the end? The reader doesn't even know what was broken with the narrator, much yet how it instantly got fixed. And I can't figure out how old the narrator is. High school boys don't really run into mothers' arms, unless it is a reunion. They are too old for that. It is unearned/melodramatic. 

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate you taking the time to read my work. The issue of scene in this particular story is one I've gotten a lot, so you're not alone in making that feedback ? 

A note for you in literary critique: 

"You seem to be a gamer. It will be hard for you to imagine life before gaming, which is the state of the reader."

It's a bad idea to make assumptions about an author based on their writing. Much like we wouldn't assume people who write horror stories are murderers, you shouldn't assume the author's perspective based on the perspective they are portraying. I, for instance, am not a gamer; it took a lot of talking with friends who are to figure out how to write this. 

 

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I emailed Irvine. I was told that if you haven’t been waitlisted or accepted at this point you’ve been rejected. Not a surprise, but in an embarrassing twist, I was emailing Iowa at the same time and ended up accidentally telling Irvine I thought my letter had been lost in the mail. Irvine was like “what is ‘mail’?”

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It's silly for Iowa to mail rejections and waitlists.

If the letters were personalized, then sure, it'd be a nice touch.  But they're not: they're just banal, standardized messages of the "it's not you, it's me" variety in Times New Roman font, haha, so...

Seems like a waste of postage, and with the collapse of the USPS, especially since March of last year, mailing anything related to grad school admissions seems like a particularly sadistic thing to do.

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18 hours ago, SMSM1229 said:

I also got the same email from Columbia in response

My e-mail was not addressed to me in particular so I think we probably just got exactly the same e-mail. Mine had "We hope this helps!" at the end. I didn't write back but I really wanted to write back - NO, YOUR FORM ANSWER DOES NOT HELP. AT ALL. ?‍♀️

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No MFA news for me just yet (other than the high spot on my waitlist, which I don't think I ever posted about? Fingers crossed for that!!) but I found out I made it to the next round in the publishing internship I applied for! Either way, I'm feeling more hopeful than I was back in late Feb/early March, and am getting back into better routines as far as reading and writing go, too. 

I hope everyone here gets good news and more clarity this week! It's been such a long application season and an even longer year+ (at the very least, if not many, many more) since we started this journey. Major props to everyone for persevering throughout all of this ❤️ 

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On 3/17/2021 at 2:27 PM, kikis_delivery said:

hey y'all! i have some questions about the nyu waitlist email!

1. does anyone have an idea of when people first start getting admitted off of the waitlist? based on last year maybe??

2. what's the deal with the paris program part of the email? i know the deadline for the low-residency mfa program already passed, but since they mentioned it in the email, i'm assuming they're reserving some spots for waitlisted people (???) does anyone know anything concrete about the paris program other than what's listed on their site? 

thank you so much ❤️

Hi! I am also waitlisted at NYU (CNF). I think people start getting admitted off waitlist around April 15, but can continue on through the summer. I got the same email and decided to apply for the Paris program, since it actually seems like a better fit for my life than the full-residency program. I spoke to them on Monday, and apparently I should hear back by Friday on whether I'm accepted. If I am accepted, I plan to remove myself from the regular waitlist and accept the Paris offer. Did you apply to the Paris program, too?

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2 hours ago, turtlesfordays said:

I emailed Irvine. I was told that if you haven’t been waitlisted or accepted at this point you’ve been rejected. Not a surprise, but in an embarrassing twist, I was emailing Iowa at the same time and ended up accidentally telling Irvine I thought my letter had been lost in the mail. Irvine was like “what is ‘mail’?”

Thank you so much for doing this!  I can breathe now that I know my fate.  I was rejected from the 6 schools I applied to.  Probably won't try again next year.  Congrats to all who got in.

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1 minute ago, caramelcarrottop said:

Probably won't try again next year.  Congrats to all who got in.

That is honestly a shame. This year was a crapfest. I know right now probably isn't the best time to think about going through all the emotional turmoil of this process again, but if this is something you really want, I'd encourage you to try it at least one more time. 

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8 minutes ago, SMSM1229 said:

anyone get word from CU yet?

Quiet day here! 

Just checked Results, there was a waitlist yesterday? Waitlists are already out? Is that the end of acceptances then? 

Edited by M-Lin
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5 minutes ago, M-Lin said:

Quiet day here! 

Just checked Results, there was a waitlist yesterday? Waitlists are already out? Is that the end of acceptances then? 

Oh yeah I saw that, it might be for poetry or CNF though. I just asked in draft if anyone for fiction was waitlisted or rejected, I'll let you know what people say! I know that someone in draft mentioned that they were waitlisted there for CNF

Edited by SMSM1229
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37 minutes ago, SMSM1229 said:

Oh yeah I saw that, it might be for poetry or CNF though. I just asked in draft if anyone for fiction was waitlisted or rejected, I'll let you know what people say! I know that someone in draft mentioned that they were waitlisted there for CNF

Thank you for relaying the message over here :)

So i take there are no updates in Draft either? srsly what's going on with this school.... 

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