2025 Creative Writing MFA Applicants Forum

[KennyK]

1 hour ago, prufrock_ said:

Most decisions are out by late march, so I don't think it will change much this year. Last year many decisions came out during AWP as well.

What does AWP mean?

[prufrock_]

1 minute ago, KennyK said:

What does AWP mean?

The Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP). it's a big conference that most programs have a presence at. Think comic con for the lit world.

[KennyK]

Was told yesterday by someone that they didn’t think I was smart enough to get into a “S tier college”. I took it on the chin, but now I hope I get into one of them so I can prove them wrong. For reference I told them my top two schools were JH & Notre Dame. 

 

[Catpaw]

13 minutes ago, KennyK said:

What does AWP mean?

Echoing what prufrock said. This thing! https://awpwriter.org/AWP/AWP/Conference-Bookfair/Overview.aspx

It's truly massive, and a ton of authors + publishing industry people attend it. A lot of MFA programs will send their students there too, both for the experience and for networking opportunities. It's the sort of environment where, if you happen to know someone from the book industry (or if you know other authors), there's a good chance you may run into them by chance at AWP. A lot of people from the literary world end up attending. (Though plenty sit it out too.) There's a likelihood that some of the professors who are making MFA decisions will be in attendance at AWP, though.

[KennyK]

41 minutes ago, Catpaw said:

Echoing what prufrock said. This thing! https://awpwriter.org/AWP/AWP/Conference-Bookfair/Overview.aspx

It's truly massive, and a ton of authors + publishing industry people attend it. A lot of MFA programs will send their students there too, both for the experience and for networking opportunities. It's the sort of environment where, if you happen to know someone from the book industry (or if you know other authors), there's a good chance you may run into them by chance at AWP. A lot of people from the literary world end up attending. (Though plenty sit it out too.) There's a likelihood that some of the professors who are making MFA decisions will be in attendance at AWP, though.

That sounds so cool!! I didn’t recognize the acronym at first but I have heard of it because this creative writing group at my school talked about it.

[Catpaw]

36 minutes ago, KennyK said:

Was told yesterday by someone that they didn’t think I was smart enough to get into a “S tier college”. I took it on the chin, but now I hope I get into one of them so I can prove them wrong. For reference I told them my top two schools were JH & Notre Dame. 

 

Honestly I hope you get in just for this reason too haha.

I know that realistically the odds we're all facing are absurd—and, when you have those kinds of odds, there is going to be an element of chance and luck, no matter how strong our writing samples. And it is stressful to feel like something is so out of our control.

But I can't stand the people who go "oh yeah, sorry, I can't see you getting in" because they really have no idea what they're talking about. And it's not just an uninformed, overconfident thing to tell someone—it's super shitty, too. Whether or not we get in has nothing to do with someone's unkind amateur assessment.

I had a friend two years back who had a ton of people tell him he was wasting his time applying. And he got into a top funded school for fiction. Meanwhile I've known people who everyone assumed would get in easy—they had publications, prizes—and they did not.

(And that's not even mentioning the people in MFA programs where everyone else just wonders how in hell they got accepted at all. Every program ends up picking some duds, inevitably... Some very lucky duds.)

You are smart enough to get into a top-tier MFA program.

Whether you do, or don't, doesn't change that. (But I hope you do get in, just to prove this person wrong!)

[zaira]

1 hour ago, KennyK said:

Was told yesterday by someone that they didn’t think I was smart enough to get into a “S tier college”. I took it on the chin, but now I hope I get into one of them so I can prove them wrong. For reference I told them my top two schools were JH & Notre Dame. 

 

Tell 'em to pound sand. 

(you probably already know this, but they're insecure and taking it out on you out of jealousy) 

[curfew]

2 hours ago, KennyK said:

Was told yesterday by someone that they didn’t think I was smart enough to get into a “S tier college”. I took it on the chin, but now I hope I get into one of them so I can prove them wrong. For reference I told them my top two schools were JH & Notre Dame. 

 

What is the problem with some people?

Literally every single one of us on this thread is pulling for you and every single one of us on this website can tell that that person is, as @Catpaw and @zaira put perfectly, envious that you have the courage and ambition to get after something like this, and can't handle their self-dislike for not being like you.

You know this so I'm only an echo, but more than 'smarts,' and more than 'connections,' writing is a game of guts. Putting your work out there in the weird, strange, whirl ball-esque machine of applications is more indicative of you as a writer than wherever you end up, regardless of prestige or any other stupid, vacuous snob-phlegm that no true writer cares about.

By continuing to put your head down, read like mad, and write like a lunatic in your chosen hours of the week, you will always be 'smart enough' for anything, anywhere. You are more than worthy of an "S-tier college" [how lame and frankly sad to see programs as just a ranked list, by the way. It seems a lot more fun to view this as one big spiderweb, where everyone is in equal suspension -- finding nutrition and time to strengthen their unique cables of silk].

You are more than worthy because your courage has validated yourself as a writer, rather than some institution a thousand miles away doing it for you. Hoping for good news from Hopkins for you in the next few weeks. We keep moving--

Edited 1 hour ago by curfew