2021 Applicants Forum

[rcsteel]

16 minutes ago, mess_mess said:

radio silence for me too. i applied for fiction in early january. their website alluded to some kind of slightly rolling review process, right? wonder if anyone has heard back from fiction.

I haven’t seen anything for fiction, but most places announce poetry and fiction around the same time. I was expecting it to be a rolling process, but I’m still freaking out ?

[Boomer not Ok]

51 minutes ago, M-Lin said:

 

This waiting game does feel like never-ending, doesn't it. 

Yes. it sure does. Especially as other folk seem to be getting responses. As far as I can tell with NYU from past reports, they seem to use a graduated notification process: full fellowships 1st, then partial etc., so they may spread acceptances and waitlists over the next few weeks. I imagine they are trying to lock in as many seats now as they can for their 1st choices, but I suppose any one who is getting offered a full package at NYU is waiting to hear back from IWW, Syracuse, Brown etc., which is why NYU probably spreads out notifications. Just my hunch. (Maybe Columbia employs the same tactic..?)

Edited February 24, 2021 by Boomer not Ok

[lunch]

I've been following this thread for the last few weeks, but decided to make an account and hop in because of the NCSU talk. I think someone mentioned getting an acceptance for poetry a few pages back, and I got a call last Tuesday letting me know I'd been accepted into the program for poetry. I wasn't told and didn't ask how many other people had received acceptances by that point, or what their schedule was, so I'm not sure if all of their acceptances have already gone out. For reference, I sent in my application on February 1st, which is their last day to apply, and received a call on the 16th.

Like everyone else, I'm still waiting on Brown, Michener, and UW -- as well as Purdue, which I'm surprised I haven't really seen mentioned here. 

Best of luck to everyone.

[woweezowee]

1 hour ago, cecsav said:

While we're on the subject of rankings etc, would anyone be interested in sharing how they evaluated each program as a good (or not so good) fit to decide where to apply? This might help those who are considering applying next year. It could also just be interesting to see how others' brains work.

I first narrowed by funding (fully funded only), then location (I am not, for any school, willing to live further north than I do now; I absolutely hate winter), then faculty. Then I checked out every book I could find at my library and through interlibrary loan that's been written by the poetry faculty at the programs in the running. I documented a bunch of information such as size of program, length of program, cost of living, funding, literary journal, graduates from the program, and housing (and more!) in a spreadsheet and used that information to loosely rank my list of schools in my own personal order of preference. Of course, then I tacked on a partially/possibly funded "safety" school. As notifications begin to roll in, I find that I'm wishing more for some decisions than others, which has lead me to rearrange my list a bit. 

I had a very similar process -- I limited myself to mostly NYC-area schools because I coparent my children and cannot be away from them (I did include Brown and Cornell in my group of schools because I allowed myself to fantasize that the long commute might be achievable). Beyond that, I limited myself to schools that either offer full funding or at least sometimes offer a comparable package. This resulted in my list of 6 schools (one of them is Hunter, which doesn't offer funding really but at least has free in-state tuition).

[mrvisser]

1 hour ago, cecsav said:

While we're on the subject of rankings etc, would anyone be interested in sharing how they evaluated each program as a good (or not so good) fit to decide where to apply? 

Mine was based on a mixture of program reputation and location. I prefer to stay in a city. I applied to Ole Miss anyways, thinking it might be easier to get in (I was wrong) but probably won't apply there next year. With Iowa I figured it was worth sacrificing the city to attend the most famous program. Notre Dame is a little more rural than I'd like, but it's so close to Chicago I figure I can make it work. Next year my list might look totally different, though, as I will (assuming this year doesn't work out) apply to a lot more schools. My "for sure" list for next year currently looks as follows (in no particular order), but I still haven't finished narrowing it down yet:

Cornell
Brown
Michener
Vanderbilt
Washington
WUSTL
Wisconsin
Syracuse
Minnesota
Virginia
Pitt
Michigan
Rutgers-Camden
Northwestern

[aheather]

On the fee waiver convo: if you're a Fulbright grantee, or have done Teach for America, the Marshall Scholarship, or Peace Corps, there may be special waivers available! 

I don't qualify for a fee waiver based on income this year, but that didn't mean app fees weren't very, very painful. I was grateful that UNLV waived my fee and it makes me feel even better about their stated commitment to an international focus/travel/etc. 

[eternalwhitenights]

15 minutes ago, aheather said:

On the fee waiver convo: if you're a Fulbright grantee, or have done Teach for America, the Marshall Scholarship, or Peace Corps, there may be special waivers available! 

I don't qualify for a fee waiver based on income this year, but that didn't mean app fees weren't very, very painful. I was grateful that UNLV waived my fee and it makes me feel even better about their stated commitment to an international focus/travel/etc. 

I'm glad you mentioned the fee waiver stuff--I kept forgetting to mention that if you've done AmeriCorps, you should be able to get a fee waiver as well. I did AmeriCorps 2017-2018, and I was able to get my fee to Notre Dame waived. I suppose you can always email the school and just ask, too. (You never know until you try, right? :))

[mrhamlet]

2 hours ago, Boomer not Ok said:

Anyone waiting on Sarah Lawrence and Emerson? Any news? I've applied to 11 schools for fiction (mostly Northeast/NY area programs) and only heard from 1 so far. Any more news on NYU for fiction about partial/non-funded acceptances?

 

I got accepted to Sarah Lawrence a few cycles ago and they didn't call me until early April if that helps! (I ultimately declined because they couldn't offer enough scholarship for me ? otherwise I would have gone!) best of luck to you !

[DeepSyntax]

Looks like there's an NYU fiction acceptance just now, so they are making the calls today.

EDIT: Still no other listings, and nothing on Draft. So maybe they are issuing calls more gradually. Or perhaps no one else in these groups was accepted. (Why yes, I do have other things I should be doing.)

Edited February 24, 2021 by DeepSyntax

[susweekly]

1 minute ago, DeepSyntax said:

Looks like there's an NYU fiction acceptance just now, so they are making the calls today.

Oh god

[corgeel14]

So i've been checking this for the past few weeks and now my anxiety has driven me to actually make an account. I'm realizing if I'd done so sooner, I may have found better answers here than from my professors lol. I'm currently in my last semester of undergrad and applied to poetry programs. I thought mostly about program ranking/location/funding when applying. I really want to end up in a city, somewhere where I could maybe see myself for this next chapter. Those schools ended up being UC Irvine, UC San Diego, The New School, NYU, Columbia, and Sarah Lawrence. I already got a denial from SD (yikes). I guess I'm wondering if there were better/more advisable ways to go about picking programs? Sometimes I worry I'm too young or green but I'm just hoping that doesn't count against me. I mean isn't the point of these to mature your craft to the next level? 

[panglosian]

Heads up again!!! As if me waiting for Cornell and Temple's call wasn't bad enough, there was a Syracuse acceptance (unknown genre) on twitter today. If someone doesn't call me before Friday I'm gonna lose it

UPDATE: looks like she's poetry!!!

UPDATE AGAIN: someone in draft who is in the Syracuse MFA rn said that all fiction and poetry emails and calls have either all already gone out or are going out tonight. Guess I'll have to strike that one off my list, sigh

Edited February 24, 2021 by panglosian

[cecsav]

2 hours ago, aheather said:

On the fee waiver convo: if you're a Fulbright grantee, or have done Teach for America, the Marshall Scholarship, or Peace Corps, there may be special waivers available! 

I don't qualify for a fee waiver based on income this year, but that didn't mean app fees weren't very, very painful. I was grateful that UNLV waived my fee and it makes me feel even better about their stated commitment to an international focus/travel/etc. 

And the McNair Scholars Program. I only paid two application fees. 

I wish fewer schools required official transcripts for application purposes though. 

[Yellow62]

51 minutes ago, panglosian said:

Heads up again!!! As if me waiting for Cornell and Temple's call wasn't bad enough, there was a Syracuse acceptance (unknown genre) on twitter today. If someone doesn't call me before Friday I'm gonna lose it

UPDATE: looks like she's poetry!!!

UPDATE AGAIN: someone in draft who is in the Syracuse MFA rn said that all fiction and poetry emails and calls have either all already gone out or are going out tonight. Guess I'll have to strike that one off my list, sigh

Pain. 

[clericalerror]

Hi, all, long-time lurker, first-time poster.... I'm curious what people's experiences are with acceptances via phone. Is it normal to have a lag time between a phone acceptance and an email/portal acceptance? More specifically, has anyone every heard of someone getting accepted to a program by accident? 

[lunch]

3 minutes ago, clericalerror said:

Hi, all, long-time lurker, first-time poster.... I'm curious what people's experiences are with acceptances via phone. Is it normal to have a lag time between a phone acceptance and an email/portal acceptance? More specifically, has anyone every heard of someone getting accepted to a program by accident? 

From my sample size of one, I got a call on Tuesday and my portal then updated with the decision letter on Friday. I was told during my call that I wouldn't receive an email with my acceptance until Friday though.

Edited February 24, 2021 by lunch

[clericalerror]

6 minutes ago, lunch said:

From my sample size of one, I got a call on Tuesday and my portal then updated with the decision letter on Friday. I was told during my call that I wouldn't receive an email with my acceptance until Friday though.

Thanks for this. I got a call from a fiction program today, but have become preoccupied with the idea that they made it erroneously, and my offer isn't real, as I haven't received an email or portal notification. Finally took a Xanax. Starting to feel better. This helps too! 

Edited February 24, 2021 by clericalerror

[Norwood]

1 hour ago, panglosian said:

UPDATE AGAIN: someone in draft who is in the Syracuse MFA rn said that all fiction and poetry emails and calls have either all already gone out or are going out tonight. Guess I'll have to strike that one off my list, sigh

Damn, for those of us not on Draft, what exactly did this person say? Read: should I be sitting next to my phone and holding onto a bit of hope, or do I have cause to lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling until I get tired enough to fall asleep? 

[panglosian]

3 minutes ago, Norwood said:

Damn, for those of us not on Draft, what exactly did this person say? Read: should I be sitting next to my phone and holding onto a bit of hope, or do I have cause to lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling until I get tired enough to fall asleep? 

They said and I quote: "Syracuse acceptances are out for both fiction and poetry. Not sure if calls went out but it looks like Terri has emailed all of the accepted writers"

I don't know if that means that just decisions have been made and the calls are still going out, but I suppose if there is no correspondence by the end of the night then its game over (at least, if you want an acceptance - idk about waitlist)

 

[Norwood]

8 minutes ago, panglosian said:

They said and I quote: "Syracuse acceptances are out for both fiction and poetry. Not sure if calls went out but it looks like Terri has emailed all of the accepted writers"

I don't know if that means that just decisions have been made and the calls are still going out, but I suppose if there is no correspondence by the end of the night then its game over (at least, if you want an acceptance - idk about waitlist)

 

Yeah, considering it's 6 p.m. here, that post sounds like no email or call means no acceptance. Thanks for the info.

[lunch]

25 minutes ago, clericalerror said:

Thanks for this. I got a call from a fiction program today, but have become preoccupied with the idea that they made it erroneously, and my offer isn't real, as I haven't received an email or portal notification. Finally took a Xanax. Starting to feel better. This helps too! 

Yeah, it's an anxiety inducing process. Congrats on the call!

[rcsteel]

Did anyone hear from Houston today? Saw that someone got a acceptance call for poetry today.

[Downtozero]

38 minutes ago, clericalerror said:

Thanks for this. I got a call from a fiction program today, but have become preoccupied with the idea that they made it erroneously, and my offer isn't real, as I haven't received an email or portal notification. Finally took a Xanax. Starting to feel better. This helps too! 

I think that is common -- both being in disbelief about the acceptance, and not seeing a portal update for a while after you get a call. Don't worry, you're in. Call back tomorrow if you're anxious?

[Yellow62]

Iowa is calling for fiction. 

[orangeslice]

1 minute ago, Yellow62 said:

Iowa is calling for fiction. 

What?? How? Where? May not survive this day lol