2025 Creative Writing MFA Applicants Forum

[isabella swan]

1 minute ago, DJ Lambchop said:

I think Iowa tends to call the people they accept

They email international applicants and later have a zoom call.

[everything bagel lover]

What programs do y'all think we’ll hear from this coming week? I’ve got Wyoming and UNLV on my radar, and I know at this point it’s kind of all kind of starting to enter free game territory. 

[rafikiman]

Do we think Iowa will continue to call acceptances over the weekend if they didn't finish yesterday, or would they wait until Monday to resume?
 

Anyone have the link to last year's Draft spreadsheet? I'm wondering how long people tend to wait to report after getting the call.

[DJ Lambchop]

Just now, rafikiman said:

Do we think Iowa will continue to call acceptances over the weekend if they didn't finish yesterday, or would they wait until Monday to resume?
 

Anyone have the link to last year's Draft spreadsheet? I'm wondering how long people tend to wait to report after getting the call.

I, for one, think the weekend is a possibility. I’ve heard some grad schools will call after 5pm or on weekends because there’s a greater chance the person will pick up. They definitely want the chance to talk to you!

[exvat]

Not to possibly stoke more anxiety, but, my friend who was rejected for a humanities postdoc at Penn last week just sent me this article:

https://www.thedp.com/article/2025/02/penn-graduate-student-class-size-cut-trump-funding

“We go through hundreds of applications, we interviewed dozens of finalists, and basically all that work was just for naught,” the professor said. “We just wasted half of those people’s time because our list just got cut by more than half.”

The professor added that the University “pulled the rug out” from many faculty members, some of whom had already offered acceptances to students they had thought were admitted — only to now face the possibility of having to cut those students from the program. The professor said that their department — which submitted its choices for admits to its graduate program on Feb. 14 — will be forced to rescind the acceptances of 10 of the 17 students.

Folks, this is a brutal cycle. Go easy on yourselves. Be gentle and kind. Any acceptances this year are miraculous. If you got any, extra congrats, don't take it for granted, and I hope it sticks 🙏

[Nauna]

My heart did a little sad lurch when I saw NC State on the spreadsheet... replaced by relief when I saw that none of them were Poetry notifications. The waiting is so killer! 

[neuroticcowboy]

NC State has notified fiction?? How many people/when? 

[smallchange]

12 hours ago, Catpaw said:

Whoa a kindred spirit! Haha. Are your different modes of writing always fairly separated for you, or do they mix sometimes in the same piece?

And yeah I do know what you mean about "pitching" and I don't think it's necessarily an incorrect instinct... For all that the programs do repeat just send us your strongest work, it's also true that definitions of 'strongest' get subjective past a certain point. "Strongest in what I felt I could pitch successfully to the adcoms" is a variety of strongest! It's impossible to say how adcoms will or won't perceive our applications, and what version of 'strong' will resonate with them—that aspect is always a black box, I guess.

Yeah it's interesting...not to get too personal on here but the novel I'm trying to write definitely has an undercurrent of mental illness that gives it an "unreality," and during application season I felt like this aspect of it was either very corny or not fleshed-out enough. I haven't been able to write very much in the past month due to stress, but when I actually manage to do it I've found this vein much easier to tap into, and I feel like I've had a bit of a breakthrough in the tone/protagonist. Not sure if you feel the same but it's sooo much easier to write when I don't have a deadline looming (I'm always fascinated by people who say the opposite)

How bout you? What's your genre? Or anyone who wants to share

And yes agree, "pitching yourself" is definitely a necessary skill for any artist and if nothing else I feel like this process has given me some needed practice in it!

It's also funny how much of any higher ed admissions process (at least in America) really rests on the applicant's ability to self-mythologize. Have always found it interesting that even non-creative programs still require some level of self-analysis in a SOP and I have no idea how seriously adcoms actually take these statements when after a while they must kind of read like boilerplate.

Edited Saturday at 07:27 PM by smallchange
thinkin about college admissions

[exvat]

Mmmm waiting hours for Grad Cafe mods to approve a post with a news article link, a new kind of purgatory

[Nauna]

1 hour ago, neuroticcowboy said:

NC State has notified fiction?? How many people/when? 

The spreadsheet shows two acceptances for fiction yesterday, but nothing additional.

Edited Saturday at 07:13 PM by Nauna
clarity

[everything bagel lover]

Draft shows that a CSU poetry admit got a GTA offer on Friday, which puts me on edge that either they went out and I didn’t get one OR maybe I’ll get good news Monday? I hope? I’m so so thrilled by CSU’s program and they’re my top choice but without funding I couldn’t take it :(((

Huge congrats to hzu if they’re here, that’s a great combo of schools! 

Edited Saturday at 08:53 PM by everything bagel lover
Typo lol

[Cosmicinkwell]

14 minutes ago, everything bagel lover said:

Draft shows that a CSU poetry admit got a GTA offer on Friday, which puts me on edge that either they went out and I didn’t get one OR maybe I’ll get good news Monday? I hope? I’m so so thrilled by CSU’s program and they’re my top choice but without funding I couldn’t take it :(((

Huge congrats to hzu if they’re here, that’s a great combo of schools! 

Very different situation but I'm still waiting for CSU to tell me their decision that they've forwarded to the grad school via the portal. So at least we're both tensely waiting for information. Hope you get the GTA-ship-- you deserve to go to your top choice!

[everything bagel lover]

5 minutes ago, Cosmicinkwell said:

Very different situation but I'm still waiting for CSU to tell me their decision that they've forwarded to the grad school via the portal. So at least we're both tensely waiting for information. Hope you get the GTA-ship-- you deserve to go to your top choice!

It’s stressful out here but I’m glad we’re in it together. I hope that you get good news from them soon! What genre are you applying in? Thank you so much, I’m hoping real hard for it. ❤️ 

[Cosmicinkwell]

3 minutes ago, everything bagel lover said:

It’s stressful out here but I’m glad we’re in it together. I hope that you get good news from them soon! What genre are you applying in? Thank you so much, I’m hoping real hard for it. ❤️ 

Fiction as well, so a waitlist is the best case scenario but I'll be honest, a rejection feels a little easier having seen you post about how much this school excites you! Glad to know that offers are going to good people.

This portal message is giving me so much false hope, ugh...

[everything bagel lover]

6 minutes ago, Cosmicinkwell said:

Fiction as well, so a waitlist is the best case scenario but I'll be honest, a rejection feels a little easier having seen you post about how much this school excites you! Glad to know that offers are going to good people.

This portal message is giving me so much false hope, ugh...

Well there’s 5 fiction spots this year so you never know! Things shake out in crazy ways and maybe we could end up in the same cohort! 

It’s so hard to keep expectations tempered 😭 I’m a painful optimist and I’m trying to be reasonable but at least it’s a temporary time of stress and mystery

[Cosmicinkwell]

9 minutes ago, everything bagel lover said:

Well there’s 5 fiction spots this year so you never know!

Yeah this is why I'm delulu... Surely the fact that I didn't already get rejected in the first wave means I'm still in the running, right? *muffled sobs*

[exvat]

2 hours ago, exvat said:

Mmmm waiting hours for Grad Cafe mods to approve a post with a news article link, a new kind of purgatory

Just read a 2020 post from a mod saying that approvals like this could take a while, since mods are busy grad students. Understandable. Will bump the post if necessary when it shows up. Many would probably be interested.

[Tinky C. Clown]

8 minutes ago, exvat said:

Just read a 2020 post from a mod saying that approvals like this could take a while, since mods are busy grad students. Understandable. Will bump the post if necessary when it shows up. Many would probably be interested.

what’s the article title?

[Hjanep]

This process is so excruciating. This is my second year applying and I’m still waiting on a handful of schools but have a mixed bag of soft and hard rejections so far and am just feeling so exhausted and anxious and beaten down. Up until this point, I thought this year would be easier because I’ve already been through it but instead it’s like the now years-long waiting period is compounding on itself. And I keep thinking about people like Alejandro Puyana who got in after four tries but also had his admission story featured in The Best American Short Stories that year and it makes an actual acceptance somewhere I want to go feel that much more insurmountable. 
 

But also the way the news dribbles out is incredibly anxiety inducing. It’s not like an admission guarantees anything re: future work beyond time and more resources but it feels like the end-all be-all when it’s so top of mind for such a sustained period of time. 
 

Ok rant over

[exvat]

[Note: this is a dupe of a post from like 6 hours ago that's stuck in moderator approval purgatory]

Not to possibly stoke more anxiety, but, my friend—who was rejected for a humanities postdoc at Penn last week—just sent me an article titled, "Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances amid federal research funding cuts," from The Daily Pennsylvanian 2/21. [Note: no clue about their MFA program.]

“We go through hundreds of applications, we interviewed dozens of finalists, and basically all that work was just for naught,” the professor said. “We just wasted half of those people’s time because our list just got cut by more than half.”

The professor added that the University “pulled the rug out” from many faculty members, some of whom had already offered acceptances to students they had thought were admitted — only to now face the possibility of having to cut those students from the program. The professor said that their department — which submitted its choices for admits to its graduate program on Feb. 14 — will be forced to rescind the acceptances of 10 of the 17 students.

Folks, this is a brutal cycle. Go easy on yourselves. Be gentle and kind. Any acceptances this year are miraculous. If you got any, extra congrats, don't take it for granted, and I hope it sticks 🙏

Edited Saturday at 10:07 PM by exvat

[Tinky C. Clown]

third iowa fiction call reported! it was made today, so that settles that 

 

thus concludes the restful portion of my saturday 

[nikolairostov]

As in, the person was called today?

[Hjanep]

Just now, nikolairostov said:

As in, the person was called today?

Yeah looks like it

[cooliejulie86]

4th fiction acceptance reported for IWW...

[Lady Gladys]

Re: IWW
Someone has to be the last person to get a phone call. This feels like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.