2021 Applicants Forum

[Ydrl]

Hey, for reference, if y’all had to pick your top three schools (or top one if you have three or less), what are they?

Mine are:

1. U Minnesota

2. Michener

3. U Maryland

Yes, in that order.

[mrvisser]

2 hours ago, Ydrl said:

Hey, for reference, if y’all had to pick your top three schools (or top one if you have three or less), what are they?

Mine are:

1. U Minnesota

2. Michener

3. U Maryland

Yes, in that order.

1. Iowa

2. Michener

3. Vanderbilt

These top three are really close to one another, though.

[unfortunate ith]

2 hours ago, Ydrl said:

Hey, for reference, if y’all had to pick your top three schools (or top one if you have three or less), what are they?

Mine are:

1. U Minnesota

2. Michener

3. U Maryland

Yes, in that order.

I'd probably have something like:

1. U Michigan

2. Syracuse

3. Ohio State

But it's hard to really narrow down, since there are a few more realistic options like U Nevada that I'd also put at nearly the same level.

[The_Realeo]

7 hours ago, pattycat said:

Welcome! Where are you applying? 

I applied to Brown, Iowa, Michener, Oregon State, U of Oregon, U of Washington - Seattle, UC Irvine, Miami, USF, Ohio State, U of Minn, U of Michigan, Notre Dame.

[sylviaplate]

Hi all! I've been lurking for a while, but I just submitted my last app (!) and think it's time to actually participate, if only to exorcise some of the anxiety. This is my first grad app cycle, and I've been oscillating from curious excitement and optimism to soul-crushing doom - fun!

Applying for poetry at Syracuse, Iowa, Michigan, Vanderbilt, UW-Wisconsin, WashU, Ohio State, CU Boulder, and University of Houston. Feel like the next couple months of waiting on decisions are going to be rough - hope everyone's surviving and keeping themselves distracted

[FairleyAlfy]

24 minutes ago, sylviaplate said:

Hi all! I've been lurking for a while, but I just submitted my last app (!) and think it's time to actually participate, if only to exorcise some of the anxiety. This is my first grad app cycle, and I've been oscillating from curious excitement and optimism to soul-crushing doom - fun!

Applying for poetry at Syracuse, Iowa, Michigan, Vanderbilt, UW-Wisconsin, WashU, Ohio State, CU Boulder, and University of Houston. Feel like the next couple months of waiting on decisions are going to be rough - hope everyone's surviving and keeping themselves distracted

Congrats on submitting your last application! That's a good feeling! I understand the soul-crushing doom all too well. It's killing my sleep pattern. I feel like we will start hearing things in February, but who knows....I hope it's not two more months lol. 

[FairleyAlfy]

On 1/7/2021 at 2:40 PM, largeheartedboy said:

If you are looking for more flash stories, I have an original flash fiction series on my website, Flash Dancers: Ekphrastic Singles, stories inspired by songs, curated by the author Meg Pokrass.

 

Thank you! I'll check them out!

[Ydrl]

I’ve been waiting for this moment until my applications were done...I sent out some poetry for publication today...

[CayceCamus]

9 hours ago, pattycat said:

Welcome! Looks like you and I have a few crossovers. Which school are you most excited about? I would be psyched to be anywhere, but Iowa is my dream school and I also have eyes for UVA and U of Florida. 

Of course Iowa, haha. But I am really interested in Boston Uni, Michigan, and Cornell. Mostly because I have lived in the Southern US forever and I want to be cold!

[unfortunate ith]

1 hour ago, sylviaplate said:

Hi all! I've been lurking for a while, but I just submitted my last app (!) and think it's time to actually participate, if only to exorcise some of the anxiety. This is my first grad app cycle, and I've been oscillating from curious excitement and optimism to soul-crushing doom - fun!

Applying for poetry at Syracuse, Iowa, Michigan, Vanderbilt, UW-Wisconsin, WashU, Ohio State, CU Boulder, and University of Houston. Feel like the next couple months of waiting on decisions are going to be rough - hope everyone's surviving and keeping themselves distracted

Welcome and congrats on submitting your last app! Having been through the process a couple times now, I can confirm that the wait is indeed an excruciating one which only gets harder as we enter February, since lots of programs (with some exceptions) don't start sending responses until March. (Ohio State tends to be super quick though, so you should hear back from them this month if past experience is any indication!)

My advice to others is basically: Don't feel like you need to be accomplishing a whole lot during these couple months. The wait itself can get extremely draining, and just getting through one day after the next is totally fine. So do what you've gotta do to stay afloat, be that writing, Netflix, or long walks on the beach, and don't feel bad if your perceived productivity drops for a while!

[Ophelias pansies]

On 1/7/2021 at 7:52 PM, unfortunate ith said:

Apologies if this has already come up, but the beach talk got me wondering: Did many of you think about climate/location when deciding where to apply

Hi! I might be an outlier in this but it wasn't a factor as I was applying. I considered the location briefly but I had an epiphany where I decided that I was willing to be uncomfortable for my art. Whatever it takes, wherever it takes me I'm gonna get my MFA  

[pattycat]

2 hours ago, Ydrl said:

I’ve been waiting for this moment until my applications were done...I sent out some poetry for publication today...

Woo-hoo! Congrats on finishing and also for submitting! Do you tend to start at the top tier pubs and work your way down or do you mix it up?

[pattycat]

2 hours ago, unfortunate ith said:

My advice to others is basically: Don't feel like you need to be accomplishing a whole lot during these couple months. The wait itself can get extremely draining, and just getting through one day after the next is totally fine. So do what you've gotta do to stay afloat, be that writing, Netflix, or long walks on the beach, and don't feel bad if your perceived productivity drops for a while!

Thank you for this. It was much needed. I've only been able to eke out a few paragraphs each day and I can't seem to stop checking my email, app portals, and submittable. I'm homeschooling my kindergartener right now and doing part-time work from home but it's just so hard to concentrate on anything for an extended period of time.

[Ydrl]

31 minutes ago, pattycat said:

Woo-hoo! Congrats on finishing and also for submitting! Do you tend to start at the top tier pubs and work your way down or do you mix it up?

Being completely honest here, this is only the second round I’ve ever sent out (and I’ve sent it to one place today). The first round didn’t yield any results, but I did get encouraging words from The Colorado Review telling me they looked forward to seeing my next submission. I’ll have to see when they’re taking submissions again.

[mrvisser]

4 hours ago, pattycat said:

Thank you for this. It was much needed. I've only been able to eke out a few paragraphs each day and I can't seem to stop checking my email, app portals, and submittable. I'm homeschooling my kindergartener right now and doing part-time work from home but it's just so hard to concentrate on anything for an extended period of time.

I feel good whenever I write a paragraph in a day. Instead of focusing on getting a lot of story done, I just work really hard on one paragraph to get the craft down well. At this point it seems more important to me to increase the quality instead of the quantity.

[Michelle Zeller]

15 hours ago, Ydrl said:

Hey, for reference, if y’all had to pick your top three schools (or top one if you have three or less), what are they?

Mine are:

1. U Minnesota

2. Michener

3. U Maryland

Yes, in that order.

Why Minnesota and Maryland? They didn't come up on top in any of the google searches I did to try to find the highest ranked schools. 

13 hours ago, mrvisser said:

1. Iowa

2. Michener

3. Vanderbilt

These top three are really close to one another, though.

Why Vanderbilt? It didn't come up on top in any of the google searches I did to try to find the highest ranked schools. 

[Ydrl]

On 1/9/2021 at 11:23 PM, Michelle Zeller said:

Why Minnesota and Maryland? They didn't come up on top in any of the google searches I did to try to find the highest ranked schools.

I want the best fit for me as a poet, writer, and overall person. I’m not chasing rankings like last time, even though it’s more work to research for months over which schools are the best for me.

[mrvisser]

34 minutes ago, Michelle Zeller said:

Why Vanderbilt? It didn't come up on top in any of the google searches I did to try to find the highest ranked schools. 

Vanderbilt is typically pretty high on the rankings I've seen. Besides rankings it's a three-year program with strong financial support, a great location in Nashville, and the school has high academic standards in most of their other departments, which is a draw for me.

[Michelle Zeller]

1 hour ago, Ydrl said:

I want the best fit for me as a poet, writer, and overall person. I’m not chasing rankings like last time, even though it’s more work to research for months over which schools are the best for me.

I don't know where to go, and I applied to 15 schools, so I will probably have a lot to pick from. Everything else being equal, I figured high rank is better than low rank. 

So how do I know if say Maryland, a school I never heard of, is better for me than Iowa? Why is Maryland better than Iowa for you, despite not being on the top 10 lists?  

 

1 hour ago, mrvisser said:

Vanderbilt is typically pretty high on the rankings I've seen. Besides rankings it's a three-year program with strong financial support, a great location in Nashville, and the school has high academic standards in most of their other departments, which is a draw for me.

It says above you wanted the two high ranked schools Iowa and Austin. Why did you dump Austin for Vanderbilt? I've never seen Vanderbilt on a top ten list. I actually never heard of it, but I only know schools that google searches told me were top 10 by someone's ranking.  

[Ydrl]

2 hours ago, Michelle Zeller said:

I don't know where to go, and I applied to 15 schools, so I will probably have a lot to pick from. Everything else being equal, I figured high rank is better than low rank. 

So how do I know if say Maryland, a school I never heard of, is better for me than Iowa? Why is Maryland better than Iowa for you, despite not being on the top 10 lists? 

Some of the ways I knew if a program was good for me is looking at the faculty’s work, finances, and health insurance.

Now that you’ve applied to those schools, I would just look up some of the faculty’s work online in the meantime. No need to buy anything unless you like them.

Iowa is quite selective, distinguished, and dazzling, but trying to live on their stipend sounds like a nightmare. I applied last year despite it, but once I had three schools left to hear from (Iowa, Nevada LV, and VCU) I realized there was never a chance I could live on any of those stipends (compared to the cost of apartments and living expenses).

Lastly, good health insurance. Being chronically ill really takes its toll on my wallet. If a school offers good health insurance as a perk of teaching (or being accepted into the program) I consider that option pretty hard. If a school doesn’t offer health insurance I know I wouldn’t be able to go even if I got drastically better.

[Ydrl]

On 1/10/2021 at 2:28 AM, babypoet2k said:

Hey everyone! I've spent an embarrassing amount of time since my last deadline (Jan 2nd) here so I thought it was time to participate. I'm a (just turned) 20 year old poet. This was my first application season and I applied to 6 schools:

Iowa

Brown

Northwestern (MA+MFA)

Notre Dame

Syracuse

Virginia

Chose these schools especially based on whether or not they would accept my 3-year undergrad degree (i'm an international student) and if the location and campus was poc & lgbtqia+ friendly (aside from cohort and faculty, of course). Now i spend my days refreshing my email, all 6 portals, and gradcafe's results search page. 

How are you keeping yourself engaged? I feel like I'm losing it in this wait AAAA

Welcome! And it’s good you did your research. I’m also POC/lgbtqia+ and that influenced my decisions also. I ended up applying to WashU and UNO.

My advice is don’t refresh gradcafe every 10 minutes or check your portals every two hours. I know, it’s so, so tempting... I don’t really know what to suggest instead, everyone has specific needs. Saying “do a hobby” or “take a walk” isn’t going to apply to everyone, and isn’t going to take 12 hours anyway. I can’t check gradcafe when I’m driving, so I drive around to some stores with good music on, and then try and immerse myself in what I’m doing without letting myself worry about anything but what’s in front of me.

[Michelle Zeller]

1 hour ago, Ydrl said:

Some of the ways I knew if a program was good for me is looking at the faculty’s work, finances, and health insurance.

Now that you’ve applied to those schools, I would just look up some of the faculty’s work online in the meantime. No need to buy anything unless you like them.

Iowa is quite selective, distinguished, and dazzling, but trying to live on their stipend sounds like a nightmare. I applied last year despite it, but once I had three schools left to hear from (Iowa, Nevada LV, and VCU) I realized there was never a chance I could live on any of those stipends (compared to the cost of apartments and living expenses).

Lastly, good health insurance. Being chronically ill really takes its toll on my wallet. If a school offers good health insurance as a perk of teaching (or being accepted into the program) I consider that option pretty hard. If a school doesn’t offer health insurance I know I wouldn’t be able to go even if I got drastically better.

 

How much is the stipend at Iowa and Maryland? 

Why can't you just sign up for income based Obamacare? 

I don't understand. You recommend I do online searches for writings from faculty members at 15 schools? That would take months. I think you would have read a lot of pages from each author to decide whether you liked them. I don't know how much writing from each faculty member is even online. 

Which schools did you apply to last year, and which ones accepted you before you decided their stipend was too low? 

[JPReinhold]

9 hours ago, Michelle Zeller said:

I don't know where to go, and I applied to 15 schools, so I will probably have a lot to pick from. Everything else being equal, I figured high rank is better than low rank. 

What gives you the impression you will have many to pick from? I am not trying to burst your bubble, but there is a very real chance for everyone applying that they will be rejected from every school on their list. You may have a lot to choose from, and I hope you do, but you should also prepare for the possibility that you will need to reapply next year. 

I think the other poster's recommendation is, once you have some acceptances, to make detailed comparisons between those. Most people apply to 10 or more schools and are lucky to have two to choose between once decisions roll out. Many people do not get in on the first cycle of applications, and many of those people are fiction writers because it is SO competitive. 

I am not trying to be cruel, I just want you and other people reading to understand that acceptance is not guaranteed by any means.

[Michelle Zeller]

16 minutes ago, JPReinhold said:

What gives you the impression you will have many to pick from? I am not trying to burst your bubble, but there is a very real chance for everyone applying that they will be rejected from every school on their list. You may have a lot to choose from, and I hope you do, but you should also prepare for the possibility that you will need to reapply next year. 

I think the other poster's recommendation is, once you have some acceptances, to make detailed comparisons between those. Most people apply to 10 or more schools and are lucky to have two to choose between once decisions roll out. Many people do not get in on the first cycle of applications, and many of those people are fiction writers because it is SO competitive. 

I am not trying to be cruel, I just want you and other people reading to understand that acceptance is not guaranteed by any means.

You're telling me that most people apply to a lot of places and don't even get in anywhere? 

So why the hell did I spend a fortune applying to 15 schools, if most people get rejected everywhere. I figured I was spending my money so I'd have the luxury to pic between places. I figured you needed to be accepted to many places, so you can show one school how much aid another school gave and negotiate. I know a lot of people who did that with undergraduate admissions. 

And now you are telling me that most people don't get in anywhere. What am I supposed to do next year if no one takes me? Why is it so hard to get in a school that basically offers no economic opportunity at graduation? I just read somewhere that Columbia offers very little aid. How do people there pay back student loans? 

[unfortunate ith]

4 minutes ago, Michelle Zeller said:

You're telling me that most people apply to a lot of places and don't even get in anywhere? 

So why the hell did I spend a fortune applying to 15 schools, if most people get rejected everywhere. I figured I was spending my money so I'd have the luxury to pic between places. I figured you needed to be accepted to many places, so you can show one school how much aid another school gave and negotiate. I know a lot of people who did that with undergraduate admissions. 

And now you are telling me that most people don't get in anywhere. What am I supposed to do next year if no one takes me? Why is it so hard to get in a school that basically offers no economic opportunity at graduation? I just read somewhere that Columbia offers very little aid. How do people there pay back student loans? 

Unfortunately, funded MFA programs work a little differently than undergraduate admissions. As far as I'm aware, there's not much aid negotiation you can do, even if you have lots of offers. It's kind of a "take it or leave it" type situation.

As for the possibility of not getting in anywhere, that's also very real, since fully-funded programs have acceptance rates somewhere in the range of 1-3%. I applied to almost 15 programs my first time and, while I got a couple waitlists, I ultimately didn't get in anywhere at all. It definitely sucks, and requires a lot of mental readjustment in terms of future plans, but it's not the end of the world and it happens to lots of us! I felt like my app was really strong my first time through, but while working on my second attempt (when I actually got an offer), I realized my earlier portfolio wasn't nearly as strong as I'd believed.

While you definitely shouldn't take this to mean you won't get any acceptances, it's always a good idea to start thinking about a Plan B just in case. And if you end up striking out this year, don't be dissuaded from trying again next year if this is something you really want to do!