2021 Applicants Forum

[cecsav]

4 minutes ago, mrvisser said:

Click the dropdown bar next to your name in the top right of the site, then go to account settings, then signature.

Rock on. Thank you very much! 

[mrvisser]

10 minutes ago, Gandoph said:

I guarantee you that, if I showed you 5 MFA writing samples from people with narrow influences, and 5 other MFA writing samples, you could not tell which group was which. The five you would pick would be just as likely to be the wrong group. 

Maybe. I'm not an English faculty member. Are you suggesting that it doesn't benefit your application to read widely and be widely influenced? You gave enough of a shit to make an account to argue with me, so what's your point?

[mrvisser]

4 minutes ago, Gandoph said:

Yikes. I apologize. I didn't mean to offend you in any way. To answer your question, yes. I am saying it doesn't benefit your application to read widely and be widely influenced instead of being narrowly influenced. The Adcoms would not be able to tell any more than one of us could. It is not possible.  

Sorry for getting heated. I thought you might have been a previous troll revisiting our forum again.

I get what you mean. I wasn't saying specifically that someone could tell that an applicant is narrowly influenced. I was more remarking that I'm surprised that close-minded writers would have a strong enough application to get in. I guess I would think that their writing samples and statements of purpose might not look appealing to adcoms. Of course, this is totally generalizing, and being an ignorant asshole doesn't mean one can't also be a good writer, and possibly they slip through the cracks anyways. I guess it's more that I'm surprised that these people are apparently prevalent enough to have created a stereotype.

[JPReinhold]

7 hours ago, cecsav said:

How realistic is it to expect responses from Oklahoma State University and FSU, if my portals still say pending/under review, but there are (multiple) results posted from both programs?

I can’t speak to the process for all universities, but I know that FSU has historically sent out acceptances and waitlists and then ghosted everyone else until the 11th hour (only to send out rejections). I have considered my FSU application dead in the water for that reason.
 

If you want that kind of gas for Oklahoma State, I would look at last year’s data.

[JPReinhold]

6 hours ago, mrvisser said:

I get what you mean. I wasn't saying specifically that someone could tell that an applicant is narrowly influenced.

What is “narrowly influenced” anyway? In the age of film, television, and the internet - we’re surrounded by (art? Literature?) media constantly. Even if you made a concerted effort to read nothing but Nabokov, you still see the writing of 100 different people on the daily. You look at different art, engage in different kind of conversations about politics, science, history... all of these influence your writing. This all happens after you’ve been influenced by your studies, socioeconomic background, religious texts, regional education and dialect, etc etc etc. 

I’d argue no one is truly narrowly influenced.

[Downtozero]

7 hours ago, mrvisser said:

8 hours ago, Gandoph said:

How would an MFA program know whether someone is snobby? 

I'm not hinging their candidacy on snobbiness. I'm extremely snobby myself. I was just vaguely alluding to jokes I've heard about "guy in your MFA" types who are obsessed with Bukowski or Kafka or Cormac McCarthy.

I promise I'm not the troll, just a lurker who was moved to finally register but...I'm a little perplexed by your examples here. I get how Bukowski and Cormac McCarthy are stereotypical MFA-dude faves or whatever (even though they write in totally different styles and predominantly different genres, and I dare say they're both valid literary influences, I get it: they're American white men who write about sex and violence and their non-white, non-male characters are at best a little "flat")...but this is the first time I've seen Kafka listed as part of the "bro" canon and I feel like I have to defend his honor here!

[Ydrl]

14 minutes ago, JPReinhold said:

What is “narrowly influenced” anyway? In the age of film, television, and the internet - we’re surrounded by (art? Literature?) media constantly. Even if you made a concerted effort to read nothing but Nabokov, you still see the writing of 100 different people on the daily. You look at different art, engage in different kind of conversations about politics, science, history... all of these influence your writing. This all happens after you’ve been influenced by your studies, socioeconomic background, religious texts, regional education and dialect, etc etc etc. 

I’d argue no one is truly narrowly influenced.

I would like to be an advocate for @mrvisser. Everyone can be exposed to everything you listed above, but not everyone absorbs or uses it to further themselves or their writing. I was like that for awhile in my Billy Collins bubble. This past year I realized that I could combine my passions, experiences, and random thoughts into poetry and it blew my mind haha.

Edited February 14, 2021 by Ydrl

[fishfish24]

7 hours ago, mrvisser said:

Sorry for getting heated. I thought you might have been a previous troll revisiting our forum again.

I get what you mean. I wasn't saying specifically that someone could tell that an applicant is narrowly influenced. I was more remarking that I'm surprised that close-minded writers would have a strong enough application to get in. I guess I would think that their writing samples and statements of purpose might not look appealing to adcoms. Of course, this is totally generalizing, and being an ignorant asshole doesn't mean one can't also be a good writer, and possibly they slip through the cracks anyways. I guess it's more that I'm surprised that these people are apparently prevalent enough to have created a stereotype.

Just to chime in briefly on this, I think there are a lot of other parts that go into an application that speak more to whether a person is two-faced/closed-minded/hard to work with/etc. than their writing sample. I had a program director tell me at one point that the whole purpose of the letters of recommendation (for their review process, at least) was to suss out how applicants worked with other writers and contributed to a creative community.

[Ydrl]

Received a piece of mail from SJCNY and got really confused and hopeful about an acceptance, but no. It was just to let me know that as of the 8th, they hadn’t received some things. I just submitted on the 6th.

[Starbuck420]

36 minutes ago, Ydrl said:

Received a piece of mail from SJCNY and got really confused and hopeful about an acceptance, but no. It was just to let me know that as of the 8th, they hadn’t received some things. I just submitted on the 6th.

yikes -- so, so weird that they would do this by mail in 2021

[Boomer not Ok]

Hope I'm not one of those "stereotypical" types. Blood Meridian cast a long spell over me. But so did Egan's Goon Squad and Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. ButI know the type, the guy whose memorized Hart Crane's The Bridge and cosplays Bukowski, as though living in a bar is going to magically turn you into a poet.

[mrvisser]

For the record, addressing @Boomer not Ok and @Downtozero, I'm definitely not shitting on Bukowski or Cormac or Kafka themselves, and I was worried it would look that way. It's one of those things where I'm criticizing the fandom rather than the artists, kind of like Rick and Morty. I used them as examples of just the writers that those bro types can be obsessed with. Most of my favorite writers are dead white men, so I wasn't picking on them for political reasons. And @JPReinhold makes a good point about other mediums that I hadn't considered.

[funfettuccine]

Did anyone actually mention their influences in their apps? I threw a few in my SOPs... curious what other people did, and if you mentioned anyone, who they were!

[Starbuck420]

12 minutes ago, Boomer not Ok said:

Blood Meridian

I get that it's bro lit on some level, but I agree. I don't think that Bukowski is remotely Cormac's peer in the bro canon

[mrvisser]

2 minutes ago, funfettuccine said:

Did anyone actually mention their influences in their apps? I threw a few in my SOPs... curious what other people did, and if you mentioned anyone, who they were!

I think, just to provide a range of who I tried to draw from, I mentioned Woolf, Vonnegut, Steinbeck, and maybe Norman Maclean. 

[Ydrl]

9 minutes ago, funfettuccine said:

Did anyone actually mention their influences in their apps? I threw a few in my SOPs... curious what other people did, and if you mentioned anyone, who they were!

I did mention at least three people I love, plus one faculty member that’s my favorite/I want to work with from each college.

[Downtozero]

8 minutes ago, mrvisser said:

For the record, addressing @Boomer not Ok and @Downtozero, I'm definitely not shitting on Bukowski or Cormac or Kafka themselves, and I was worried it would look that way. It's one of those things where I'm criticizing the fandom rather than the artists, kind of like Rick and Morty. I used them as examples of just the writers that those bro types can be obsessed with. Most of my favorite writers are dead white men, so I wasn't picking on them for political reasons. And @JPReinhold makes a good point about other mediums that I hadn't considered.

I feel you and I have definitely met (and/or dated) the stereotypical Bukowksi and Cormac fans, I guess I just haven't met many Kafka bros in my life. I would even venture to say that I wish I met more.

I also once dated someone whose favorite book was the Fountainhead and who told me he wanted to name his kid "Howard Roark" (huge red flag which I should have heeded)...lest anyone accuse me of not being conversant with the many flavors of lit bros that exist in this world.

8 minutes ago, funfettuccine said:

Did anyone actually mention their influences in their apps? I threw a few in my SOPs... curious what other people did, and if you mentioned anyone, who they were!

I kept making huge changes to my SOP and with each school I applied to, but I mostly avoided listing influences by name. In a couple, the sole author I name-dropped was Flannery OConnor (not by explicitly naming her as an influence, but by quoting an essay she wrote about fiction) and now I feel embarrassed/regretful because she's probably one of the most obvious references you can list in an SOP...sigh.

[NLake]

29 minutes ago, funfettuccine said:

Did anyone actually mention their influences in their apps? I threw a few in my SOPs... curious what other people did, and if you mentioned anyone, who they were!

I mentioned a couple poets and novelists who I feel connected to, and who have encouraged me to ask harder questions about my own writing and what the hell I’m doing with it. I remember being cautioned against mentioning only popular dead authors. First, because lots of people are going to mention them, but also because it’s helpful to show adcoms that you’ve got some awareness of and interest in what’s currently happening in the literary community. I don’t know how important or accurate that is, but the folx who gave me that advice all have MFAs.

Of course, I don’t think it would be helpful advice to follow if it causes someone to veer from their truth. If popular dead guys are the ones who have influenced or impressed or informed a person’s writing the most, I personally feel that applicants should be allowed to share that, and maybe just be sure to show in their writing sample how they are growing/changing/creating from it. 
 

That said, how I personally feel about admissions strategies means absolutely nothing. And I have no way of actually knowing how they feel about the influences applicants mention. Just scraping together bits and pieces of anecdotal and subjective evidence and making big ol’ assumptions over here. 

Edited February 14, 2021 by NLake

[shanbanan]

18 minutes ago, funfettuccine said:

Did anyone actually mention their influences in their apps? I threw a few in my SOPs... curious what other people did, and if you mentioned anyone, who they were!

I mentioned one poet and one sculptor in my SOP. I wanted to mention others but every time I tried to work them in, the statement felt "crowded." In the end, I decided to go with one or two influences that I could really speak to within the confines of the SOP, rather than a long list I couldn't fully unpack. Anyway, I think there are so many different and beautiful ways to tackle an SOP. That's just what worked for me. 

[chrisclements]

I did mention influential authors in my SOP, and now I'm kind of starting to regret it: DFW, Jennifer Egan, Zadie Smith, Pynchon and Denis Johnson. With DFW especially, (seeing as he is quite understandably going out of vogue atm) I think it becomes easier to dismiss someone's writing if their influences smell of lit crit guy (and for the record, I'm doing my best to expand my reading). Then again, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to just lie to the adcom folks. I was in a bit of a bind, to be honest. Hopefully it works out for me

[Ydrl]

I love how this is what we’re doing with our Valentine’s Day. Being worried writing nerds on the internet.

[NLake]

2 minutes ago, chrisclements said:

I did mention influential authors in my SOP, and now I'm kind of starting to regret it: DFW, Jennifer Egan, Zadie Smith, Pynchon and Denis Johnson. With DFW especially, (seeing as he is quite understandably going out of vogue atm) I think it becomes easier to dismiss someone's writing if their influences smell of lit crit guy (and for the record, I'm doing my best to expand my reading). Then again, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to just lie to the adcom folks. I was in a bit of a bind, to be honest. Hopefully it works out for me

I think honesty in your SOP is so important, both for you and for the adcom. I think you made a good choice, and I’m wishing you the best! 

[mrvisser]

I cringe every time I go back and read the part of my SOP where I mentioned influences. Even with all the edits I made to it, I can't believe I didn't make it sound less contrived when I talk about writers I like.

[feralgrad]

43 minutes ago, funfettuccine said:

Did anyone actually mention their influences in their apps? I threw a few in my SOPs... curious what other people did, and if you mentioned anyone, who they were!

I mentioned Shirley Jackson, Octavia Butler, and Nikolai Gogol. Looking back, this didn't suggest that I know what's going on in the current literary world. However, I think it showed that I've read somewhat widely. I connected each author to my own writing goals/aesthetic.

[Starbuck420]

12 minutes ago, chrisclements said:

Then again, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to just lie to the adcom folks.

I think you're right that the best thing to do in these scenarios is just to be honest, which is what you seem to have done, so, good work. IMO, in addition to just being a bad idea, it's also actually very hard to convincingly lie to these people (either directly or by omission) about what you like to read and what inspires you.

It's also true that the tenured professors who read these applications tend to be (unfortunately) much more conservative than most applicants, so I think your average tenured prof is probably going to have, honestly, a slightly less unfavorable view of DFW than many of us have. Obviously there are exceptions to this rule, but ask anyone in any sort humanities or arts discipline: the tenured profs belong to a different class than the rest of us, and as a result tend to have different priorities

11 minutes ago, chrisclements said:

lit crit guy

also, can I ask: what do you mean by this? I think we're all familiar with the guy in your mfa type (already mentioned quite recently in the thread I think) but I'm sure if this is something distinct from that or what