2025 Creative Writing MFA Applicants Forum

[Prosaic Ioniser]

12 hours ago, exvat said:

[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 🙏

Oh God, it is really scary where things are headed... Seeing everything from outside the US and then how it trickles down to other places too 😕But thanks for the heads up and acknowledging that things are particularly hard right now. 

[Chex]

6 hours ago, rafikiman said:

The Draft spreadsheet is just a Google form submission / Google sheet, so no social media needed. I put a post above with the links to the form and sheet but it's stuck in mod purgatory. If anyone's interested, just DM me for the links.

Hi, I know you mean well but I urge you to reconsider posting those links here. There's a reason no one else has posted them before. It's a private group and the moderators explicitly asked that the links not be shared elsewhere. People fill out their data there with the understanding that access to it is closed and confidential. And since every member has access to in-group conversations/interactions and can reach out to the moderators to correct or confirm something, there's more internal trust, which makes the results there several degrees more reliable than, for instance, GradCafe's results page. You'll also notice that a few people filled out the form with their legal names. It's not cool to post that on a public page without their consent.

If the post you made here is approved, please consider editing the links out. And if you still want to privately share a link to someone who's not in the group, please only share the link to the view-only data, not the editable Google form. In that case, a DM would be better than a public post.

[tomat0tomat0]

personally im assuming that both iowa & rutgers newark are soft rejections atp (i guess waitlists are still possible but i'm doubtful) (for fiction at least)

side note: anybody else never receive anything from johns hopkins? of course by this point i assume nothing = rejection , but still i find it weird (and kinda rude!) that i never even got an email? my portal still just says "submitted" as well

 

[Hank Moody]

17 minutes ago, tomat0tomat0 said:

anybody else never receive anything from johns hopkin

JHU is so selective even their rejections are only bestowed upon a chosen few

[tomat0tomat0]

Just now, Hank Moody said:

JHU is so selective even their rejections are only bestowed upon a chosen few

HAHAH i actually laughed , so real 

[runlolarun]

On 2/20/2025 at 8:54 AM, lurkingwriter3 said:

Feels like a gut punch seeing an acceptance and having a silent phone🫣

I can't even find the UNLV acceptance on the draft list... probably because I am so anxious, lol. Is that where it was posted?

[runlolarun]

On 2/20/2025 at 8:54 AM, lurkingwriter3 said:

Feels like a gut punch seeing an acceptance and having a silent phone🫣

Okay I found the two (?) acceptances on draft once I calmed down and slowly looked, lol.

[nauseated]

1 hour ago, tomat0tomat0 said:

personally im assuming that both iowa & rutgers newark are soft rejections atp (i guess waitlists are still possible but i'm doubtful) (for fiction at least)

side note: anybody else never receive anything from johns hopkins? of course by this point i assume nothing = rejection , but still i find it weird (and kinda rude!) that i never even got an email? my portal still just says "submitted" as well

 

yep, nothing from JHU

[tomat0tomat0]

2 minutes ago, nauseated said:

yep, nothing from JHU

not to sound clinically insane but i vaguely remember you saying you lived in a time zone many hours ahead of the us. are you also an international applicant? maybe that has smth to do with why both our results are delayed; maybe they send out the international rejections later for some reason? lol just speculation but it's sunday and i have nothing else to do so...

[nauseated]

5 minutes ago, tomat0tomat0 said:

not to sound clinically insane but i vaguely remember you saying you lived in a time zone many hours ahead of the us. are you also an international applicant? maybe that has smth to do with why both our results are delayed; maybe they send out the international rejections later for some reason? lol just speculation but it's sunday and i have nothing else to do so...

hahaha not insane at all and that makes sense, I didn't even think of that! very likely, since I'm based somewhere in south asia 

[prufrock_]

I'm not international and JHU hasn't sent my rejection yet. 

 

I like Hank's idea that I offended them by even applying.

[DJ Lambchop]

Does JHU actually just not send out all their rejections and instead make people assume?

[Hjanep]

I think JHU is waiting for Iowa etc results to roll out to have a more firm idea if they need to elongate their waitlist before they reject the rest of us

[Chex]

I think JHU has sent all acceptances and waitlists, those yet to hear back are soft Rs, and the rejection notifications are delayed due to unrelated admin/logistics reasons. I believe more people will get their hard Rs this week or by the first week of March.

[prufrock_]

4 minutes ago, Chex said:

I think JHU has sent all acceptances and waitlists, those yet to hear back are soft Rs, and the rejection notifications are delayed due to unrelated admin/logistics reasons. I believe more people will get their hard Rs this week or by the first week of March.

I agree with this. Last year it took them 3+ weeks to send out all rejections, but no waitlists/acceptances came out after that first batch (or at least they weren't reported).

[Guest]

Has anyone who has done an interview recently had an offer afterward?If so, I am assuming they sent an email afterward making the offer?Could anyone who has been through this say something about their experience? Thanks so much.

Edited February 23 by Guest
correction

[pananoprodigy]

Dear MFA Gods: If I get into my top choice I vow to give anyone who asks me free notes on their SOPs and samples next cycle. 

So mote it be

So mote it be 

So mote it be

[exvat]

In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have said, "I'd be fine not getting into grad school if Kendrick Lamar wins all five Grammys."

[pananoprodigy]

15 minutes ago, exvat said:

In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have said, "I'd be fine not getting into grad school if Kendrick Lamar wins all five Grammys."

You offered the world a tremendous gift, but at what cost? 

[Jane Wyman]

I haven't gotten any positive signs yet and am starting to panique ... I'm leaving my current program regardless for a variety of reasons, but it's not going to look great if I'm just like, "Yeah, I'm leaving for personal reasons, best of luck to all." 

Does anyone know the etiquette in this situation?

[exvat]

55 minutes ago, pananoprodigy said:

You offered the world a tremendous gift, but at what cost? 

I look forward to the karmic payoff at some point 😂 

[pananoprodigy]

1 hour ago, Jane Wyman said:

I haven't gotten any positive signs yet and am starting to panique ... I'm leaving my current program regardless for a variety of reasons, but it's not going to look great if I'm just like, "Yeah, I'm leaving for personal reasons, best of luck to all." 

Does anyone know the etiquette in this situation?

Is taking a formal leave of absence an option?  

[Jane Wyman]

@pananoprodigy I'm teaching and taking classes through the end of the semester, then was going to write a resignation letter, but I'm not sure if that's correct.

Doesn't a leave of absence imply you're coming back? This is a genuine question, as I'm unfamiliar with the protocol. I don't want to return under any circumstances, but if this would be more graceful, I'm open to it.

[Cosmicinkwell]

I never thought I'd hate weekends so much... gimme that clarity! I need to knowwwwwwwww

[pananoprodigy]

7 minutes ago, Jane Wyman said:

@pananoprodigy I'm teaching and taking classes through the end of the semester, then was going to write a resignation letter, but I'm not sure if that's correct.

Doesn't a leave of absence imply you're coming back? This is a genuine question, as I'm unfamiliar with the protocol. I don't want to return under any circumstances, but if this would be more graceful, I'm open to it.

Hmm, in that case I'm not sure. If there are no faculty members in the department that you'd feel comfortable talking to about it, I wonder if your university has a general graduate advisor or academic office that you could reach out to. That's probably where I'd start if I were you.