2025 Creative Writing MFA Applicants Forum

[exvat]

1 minute ago, epr said:

Best advice I heard someone give was never take out a loan for grad school that’s more than you’d agree for a normal/cheap new car. If you can’t picture or manage adding a car payment worth of bills to your life/living expenses post grad school, then an unfunded or partially funded program is NOT for you. 

I love this. Very relatable financial advice.

[nauseated]

1 hour ago, exvat said:

I just got accepted to Columbia for Poetry!!! With an Apple gift card for financial aid!!! Feels amazing but almost certainly gonna have to turn it down due to money.

hope the financial aspect works out for you, but either way, congrats lovely!!! hope you're very proud of yourself. also how does the apple card for aid work im so curious

[exvat]

2 minutes ago, nauseated said:

hope the financial aspect works out for you, but either way, congrats lovely!!! hope you're very proud of yourself. also how does the apple card for aid work im so curious

Thank you!! 🙏 ❤️ I'm speaking with them Thursday, and they said financial aid was available to discuss, whatever that means.

Their initial offer is a $10k/yr scholarship, which I joke may as well be an Apple gift card, considering their tuition 😆

[spewilicious]

Just got my acceptance to Chapman for their dual MA/MFA program!!!! Waiting to hear about funding tho.
I can't believe this is happening. I was rejected from USC two years ago, and rejected from Northwestern this year, so I really didn't think I'd get Chapman either. I could cry.

 

On 2/28/2025 at 7:18 PM, sgrad said:

got into chapman! but no word on funding. is there any word on draft if people received fellowship offers with admission?

Congratulations!!!!

@KennyK I'm also waiting on Riverside, but haven't heard a peep. My portal still says "Awaiting Decision." I'm rooting for you!

[KennyK]

6 minutes ago, spewilicious said:

Just got my acceptance to Chapman for their dual MA/MFA program!!!! Waiting to hear about funding tho.
I can't believe this is happening. I was rejected from USC two years ago, and rejected from Northwestern this year, so I really didn't think I'd get Chapman either. I could cry.

 

Congratulations!!!!

@KennyK I'm also waiting on Riverside, but haven't heard a peep. My portal still says "Awaiting Decision." I'm rooting for you!

First congrats!!! 
 

And yes I am getting antsy waiting to receive a call telling me that I’ve been accepted. 😭

[sgrad]

10 minutes ago, spewilicious said:

Just got my acceptance to Chapman for their dual MA/MFA program!!!! Waiting to hear about funding tho.
I can't believe this is happening. I was rejected from USC two years ago, and rejected from Northwestern this year, so I really didn't think I'd get Chapman either. I could cry.

 

Congratulations!!!!

@KennyK I'm also waiting on Riverside, but haven't heard a peep. My portal still says "Awaiting Decision." I'm rooting for you!

yay congrats!!!! i would shoot them an email to ask about funding. david got back to me quickly (im not funded but he offered to put me in contact with a current student. there are GA opportunities etc)

[exvat]

17 minutes ago, spewilicious said:

Just got my acceptance to Chapman for their dual MA/MFA program!!!! Waiting to hear about funding tho.
I can't believe this is happening. I was rejected from USC two years ago, and rejected from Northwestern this year, so I really didn't think I'd get Chapman either. I could cry.

 

Congratulations!!!!

@KennyK I'm also waiting on Riverside, but haven't heard a peep. My portal still says "Awaiting Decision." I'm rooting for you!

Congratulations!!!

[spewilicious]

15 minutes ago, sgrad said:

yay congrats!!!! i would shoot them an email to ask about funding. david got back to me quickly (im not funded but he offered to put me in contact with a current student. there are GA opportunities etc)

Thank you! I'm definitely gonna email. Will you be attending without funding?


I'm out of reacts for the day, but thanks for the congrats ❤️

[decayingballads21]

does anyone have any info on Oregon states waitlist size ? or any info at all I haven’t heard anything back from them since I emailed a few weeks ago 

[sgrad]

3 minutes ago, spewilicious said:

Thank you! I'm definitely gonna email. Will you be attending without funding?


I'm out of reacts for the day, but thanks for the congrats ❤️

i think as an international student, it's a bit too hard to attend without the fellowship for me unfortunately. but it looks like they have lots of options

[Tinky C. Clown]

7 minutes ago, decayingballads21 said:

does anyone have any info on Oregon states waitlist size ? or any info at all I haven’t heard anything back from them since I emailed a few weeks ago 

depends on genre, but in any case i don't expect any of us waitlistees to hear anything back for at least two weeks, probably more.

[saintjdog]

2 hours ago, GhostOfHermann said:

I know some others received that email from Pittsburgh this past Thursday with an update on why their admissions have been delayed. I couldn't tell if it was a general email to all applicants, or sent only to applicants who they are really interested in. That line in it, "We want to assure you that your application remains under active consideration and is of significant interest to our department," has really screwed with my head quite a lot.

I've thought about emailing them (they did say to email with any questions) and asking the above (was it a general email or more specific) but I thought that might be out of line and make me look bad. Does anyone have thoughts? Thanks!

 

I feel exactly the same and I wish I could email to ask, it feels in such poor taste to give this kind of hope to people they are 100% sure they're not going to accept...very frustrating!!

[Scribe]

9 minutes ago, saintjdog said:

I feel exactly the same and I wish I could email to ask, it feels in such poor taste to give this kind of hope to people they are 100% sure they're not going to accept...very frustrating!!

They aren't the first place to do that and I don't think they realize how it comes off. Last year there were places that sent out all sorts of weird emails; sometimes it was in lieu of a waiting list, other times they just wanted to get you excited and had every intent of accepting OR waitlisting the applicants who received the notice, still other times it was simply meant to be an encouraging notification that they had indeed received your application. 
I doubt it was ever thought to be unprofessional, but I feel it is that at least. 
I personally believe when anyone emails you, they must not be upset when you email them back. I'm not saying i would but IF I did, I'd be sure to mention you were representative of several people who were unsure of the intent. 

[DJ Lambchop]

15 minutes ago, saintjdog said:

I feel exactly the same and I wish I could email to ask, it feels in such poor taste to give this kind of hope to people they are 100% sure they're not going to accept...very frustrating!!

Agreed. I heard that they accidentally sent an email that went something like “well by now you’ve been accepted to our mfa program” to ALL applicants a few years ago. Could be they just suck at admin/tech stuff. 

[Allrich90]

hey, anyone who applied for nyu cw poetry heard back from them? It looks like they have sent out acceptances on the 28th on spreadsheet.

[doubleve]

hey! longtime lurker who has finally made an account to say how grateful i am for everyone here. the kindness + support is immense and has been a huge source of comfort along this process.

i also wanted to ask, i know that iowa fiction acceptances have come out, but has there been any movement for poetry? not sure if it's just something i've missed - any insight appreciated! thank you!

[Chex]

55 minutes ago, Allrich90 said:

hey, anyone who applied for nyu cw poetry heard back from them? It looks like they have sent out acceptances on the 28th on spreadsheet.

Yeah, poetry and fiction acceptances have been reported. The next batch of notifications (maybe in a week or two) should be waitlists. 

19 minutes ago, doubleve said:

hey! longtime lurker who has finally made an account to say how grateful i am for everyone here. the kindness + support is immense and has been a huge source of comfort along this process.

i also wanted to ask, i know that iowa fiction acceptances have come out, but has there been any movement for poetry? not sure if it's just something i've missed - any insight appreciated! thank you!

Hi and welcome! 

No movement yet for Iowa poetry, but going by precedent from last year, they should begin notifying this week. Best of luck! 

[Magnolia Electric Co]

I suspect this has already come up before, but one thing I am still trying to understand about MFA programs is the concept of rankings/prestige. For instance, I know Cornell, Michigan, Johns Hopkins, etc. are considered very prestigious schools, and more people apply to them than other fully-funded schools with similar stipends. Does anyone have a sense of what goes into "prestige"? Is it really just reputation, or does it have to do with publishing records of alumni, or famous faculty, or name recognition, or a high quality MFA program, or....? Sorry for asking such a vague question - it just seems like something that everyone implicitly knows, so I've been curious about it for a long time!

[Tuxedocat]

1 hour ago, Allrich90 said:

hey, anyone who applied for nyu cw poetry heard back from them? It looks like they have sent out acceptances on the 28th on spreadsheet.

I got accepted for poetry with full funding + stipend on the 26th. I saw some people got email acceptances on Feb 28th. But someone just reported an NYU poetry acceptance today. I thought they were done on the 28th so not sure if the acceptance today is an outlier or if they’re not done yet. Wishing you good news!

 

[Scribe]

6 minutes ago, Magnolia Electric Co said:

I suspect this has already come up before, but one thing I am still trying to understand about MFA programs is the concept of rankings/prestige. For instance, I know Cornell, Michigan, Johns Hopkins, etc. are considered very prestigious schools, and more people apply to them than other fully-funded schools with similar stipends. Does anyone have a sense of what goes into "prestige"? Is it really just reputation, or does it have to do with publishing records of alumni, or famous faculty, or name recognition, or a high quality MFA program, or....? Sorry for asking such a vague question - it just seems like something that everyone implicitly knows, so I've been curious about it for a long time!

Prestige is perhaps far more subjective than even your writing sample. (This is true for all schools with the exception of Irvine which is objectively prestigious.)

now, who decides this? Well, of course a program would want to promote themselves (not Irvine (this is not a joke, more applicants than they need)) but they don’t have much say I the perception of others who can obviously contend something as abstract as prestige. (Irvine notwithstanding as it is indisputably prestigious.) 

of course people try to compile lists based on all sorts of data, number of applicants, awards held by alumni, publication lists, and alumni success (also subjective).

does any of this land you an agent or book deal? With one exception (Irvine) I cannot think of the name of one program of publishing house or editor who has a favorite MFA program. I do know they are out there, I can only recall the one though. 
 

here’s the takeaway: can you imagine an agent, publisher, or editor EVER saying, “I don’t like this, but look at that MFA! where do I sign?!” No, of course not - not even Irvine. You know why? Because you’ve never stood in a bookshop and overheard the words, “look at that book! I heard the author went to…”

[exvat]

Not to give false hope here, but I wanna remind anyone who needs it—as my loved ones have been VERY quick to remind me today—that it truly ain't over 'til it's over. I called my cycle a failure on Friday (with "98% of precincts reporting")... And then got accepted to my last two schools.

It ain't over 'til it's over.

[Catpaw]

1 hour ago, Magnolia Electric Co said:

I suspect this has already come up before, but one thing I am still trying to understand about MFA programs is the concept of rankings/prestige. For instance, I know Cornell, Michigan, Johns Hopkins, etc. are considered very prestigious schools, and more people apply to them than other fully-funded schools with similar stipends. Does anyone have a sense of what goes into "prestige"? Is it really just reputation, or does it have to do with publishing records of alumni, or famous faculty, or name recognition, or a high quality MFA program, or....? Sorry for asking such a vague question - it just seems like something that everyone implicitly knows, so I've been curious about it for a long time!

I would actually love to hear other people's answers to this. I don't know that this question has come up in quite this form before.

My impression is that, among the fully-funded schools, prestige is a mix of self-propagating reputation + a higher stipend and/or famous faculty (ideally both, but sometimes—like with Syracuse—the faculty are famous enough that people overlook the meh stipend).

Vanderbilt is a relatively new program, for example, but it developed a reputation fast, in part because their stipend is among the highest, and they brought in some prestigious faculty. So a lot of people apply, and it lets them be choosy with their cohort, and bam. A burgeoning reputation.

Iowa, on the other hand, has kind of a 'meh' stipend compared to many. And—this is very subjective and I'm almost leery of saying it—I don't feel that their core faculty are often the main draw, for most applicants...? But its reputation is everything, and they've graduated so many reputable authors that everyone can name at least one author they admire who studied at Iowa... Its huge applicant pool and large cohort size also helps maintain their reputation, because it lets them pick a large number of top applicants. So inevitably there are rising stars who graduate from each cohort. But there are also plenty of Iowa graduates who come out of the program and essentially never write again. I know two personally. They do accept (and graduate) a lot of duds, which I think is true of most programs honestly, but with Iowa it's kinda hidden by the large cohort size.

I also get the impression that semi-arbitrary online ranking systems can perpetuate a sense of 'reputation'. UVA recently got a huge boost in its online ranking reputation (probably helped, too, by the big increase in their stipend!) but I remember a few years back when their reputation was more muted. Even though the core faculty have remained nearly identical throughout? But the reshuffling of online rankings (plus, I guess, the better stipend) really increased their applicant size.

I think Johns Hopkins is the main school I think of where their reputation is presented to applicants as numbers-based. Yes they have famous faculty, yes they have a really high stipend, but also they present metrics such as "many of our graduates have signed a book deal three years within graduating" or "many of our graduates go on to receive Stegner Fellowships" and it's hard to argue with results like that. But it's also telling of their focus. It smells, to me, like a self-selecting prophecy—it says that they're going to select for students whose works already feel like they could be mainstream-publishable, and whose aesthetic maps to what the Stegner Fellowship likes to see. Aka, there's a good chance that many of their students would have gotten an agent (or a Stegner Fellowship) within five years anyways, even if they hadn't applied to Hopkins. Because those are the type of students that Hopkins is looking for, and accepting.

In contrast, some programs don't allow agents on their campus at all, and they put the focus entirely on the writing for writing's sake. Those programs are looking for a very different kind of student.

I feel, too, that some reputations come across as near-universal (Iowa, for example) but a lot of it is subjective... I don't get a strong sense of Cornell having a 'universal prestige' reputation for example (they are very reputable, don't get me wrong!), but I definitely feel like Michener has that reputation? In my head, I see Iowa, Michener, and Michigan as the 'top 3' in terms of prestige and name-recognition, but I feel like this is so fuzzy as a metric, and I'm really interested to see how my internal sense compares to other people's perceptions!

(Also I should add that I'm thinking from the POV of fiction. I am sure that it's a bit different for poetry or CNF.)

Edited 5 hours ago by Catpaw
typo

[essentialflowers]

On 2/28/2025 at 12:09 PM, Southron said:

If you don't mind me asking, why is Florida State your top choice? I went there for undergrad and enjoyed it, but I never really see it mentioned among people's choices for MFA schools.

 

I love the location, the faculty, and the three-year program! Based on their current and past students, it seems like a cohort that would suit me

[exvat]

1 hour ago, Scribe said:

Prestige is perhaps far more subjective than even your writing sample. (This is true for all schools with the exception of Irvine which is objectively prestigious.)

now, who decides this? Well, of course a program would want to promote themselves (not Irvine (this is not a joke, more applicants than they need)) but they don’t have much say I the perception of others who can obviously contend something as abstract as prestige. (Irvine notwithstanding as it is indisputably prestigious.) 

of course people try to compile lists based on all sorts of data, number of applicants, awards held by alumni, publication lists, and alumni success (also subjective).

does any of this land you an agent or book deal? With one exception (Irvine) I cannot think of the name of one program of publishing house or editor who has a favorite MFA program. I do know they are out there, I can only recall the one though. 
 

here’s the takeaway: can you imagine an agent, publisher, or editor EVER saying, “I don’t like this, but look at that MFA! where do I sign?!” No, of course not - not even Irvine. You know why? Because you’ve never stood in a bookshop and overheard the words, “look at that book! I heard the author went to…”

"Yeah, I obvs applied to the IWW—the Irvine Writers' Workshop."

[Allrich90]

1 hour ago, Tuxedocat said:

I got accepted for poetry with full funding + stipend on the 26th. I saw some people got email acceptances on Feb 28th. But someone just reported an NYU poetry acceptance today. I thought they were done on the 28th so not sure if the acceptance today is an outlier or if they’re not done yet. Wishing you good news!

 

I guess that means, that I can only expect a rejection ;(