The Semi-Final List

Everyone loves lists. Here's mine (the semi-final version, with one school's response still yet unheard):

University of Illinois - officially accepted
Western Michigan University - accepted (turned down)
Roosevelt University (Chicago) - accepted (turned down)
Purdue University - waitlisted * (turned down)
University of Notre Dame - waitlisted (turned down)
University of Michigan - rejected
Washington University - rejected
University of Iowa - rejected
Indiana University - rejected
Syracuse University - rejected
Ohio State University - rejected
Johns Hopkins - rejected
Columbia College (Chicago) - no answer

* Purdue's selection process relies on a system where the top 15-20 candidates for poetry and fiction each are selected. Out of these candidates, the final slots are eventually filled with permission from the Director of Composition, who has final say. This selection process works as a kind of quasi-waitlist. Details of Purdue's process can be found here.


Some observations. A wise man would tell you that the MFA selection process is at times an incredibly luck-based and arbitrary process. There are countless stories of people getting into Iowa and being rejected from a small state school in the same year. Yet when examining my list, where I got in and waitlisted, and where I did not, there seems, at least to me, an obvious pattern. Simply, that I couldn't crack the very elite schools, the schools that populate the top 20, top 15 lists -- Syracuse, Iowa, Indiana, John Hopkins, Michigan. It seems like a simple enough explanation: I simply wasn't good enough this year. But although I love the simple explanations, I also think it's a little more complicated than that.

There's the obvious question of sample size. Thirteen schools and one year's worth of data is far too little for any meaningful result. And what about school aesthetics? I've also found in my communication with other potential MFAers this year that there seems to be an extremely high correlation between folks who got accepted into Illinois, who also got an offer from Purdue (or waitlisted) and Notre Dame, and vice versa. Coincidence? I don't know. You expect some measure of overlap between the students that schools will fight over -- talent is talent -- but I counted, including myself, about a half dozen people who got a positive response from more than one of the schools I mentioned above. That is an extremely high number for schools that will only have incoming cohorts of 3-5 students apiece. In my opinion, there's definitely a case of school specific aesthetics in play here. And uncoincidentally, it's also a regional pattern -- the schools in the same locations will get a huge overlap of students applying to all or most of the schools in the same general area.

Speculation, of course. All I have to go off of are the schools I've researched and read. I do wonder if these patterns appear in other regions as well. What about the schools in Florida? New York? North Carolina? If I were a betting man, I'd wager that there'd be an overlapping pattern of schools with similar aesthetics, along with a regional pattern of schools pulling from similar application bases and certain locations.

Winding Down

This next week and a half will be a mad dash for those who are anxiously sitting on their waitlist spots, as people eventually make their decisions before April 15. Good luck! I'll be out of town during the upcoming week, and won't be making any posts in the meantime. However, when I get back, I do intend to do a full retrospective: what did I do wrong, what did I do right, and most importantly, what did I learn? I'm sure I'll have a lot to share; I also intend to post my statement of purpose, verbatim, as well as some other things. So we're not quite done yet (at least, not if you're an MFA nerd, like me).

Decision Time

I've finally figured out how to add photos to my posts, and just in time too. As one can probably guess by the image, I've made a decision. Illinois will be my school, and Champaign-Urbana will be where I live for the next three years, and I couldn't be happier. In doing so, I've turned down my waitlist spot at Notre Dame, my spots at Roosevelt and Western Michigan, and my quasi-waitlist spot at Purdue. I hope they are of use to other individuals out there.

My visit to the campus on Monday was nothing short of fantastic. While I had always known that the faculty were helpful and enthusiastic in my communication with them, I was pleasantly surprised to find out how close-knit the student body was as well. They made my decision an easy one, and I look forward to working with them in the fall.

Now here is that part where I shamelessly plug my program: Why am I so excited about the University of Illinois?

• It is a three-year, fully funded program. What does fully funded mean? You get approximately 11-12 thousand for the first year, and about 18 thousand for the remaining two years. That's incredible for a town as cheap as Champaign-Urbana.
  
• You get to teach, a lot. In your first year, you teach one class, the second and third years, two classes. This may not appeal to everyone, but the prospect of teaching at the college level fills me with both excitement and dread. But mostly excitement.
  
• If you don't want to teach so much, you can do other things. The great thing about the program is that you can forgo one of those teaching classes in your second and/or third years for other internship opportunities. There are individuals in the program who work with the program's lit magazine, Ninth Letter, who TA for biology classes, etc. There's a ton of flexibility with what you can do, which speaks to the value placed on the MFA students.
• I mentioned this above, but there's a tremendous opportunity to work with the literary magazine, Ninth Letter. Not only is it a great resource to learn about the publishing industry, but you also to get to read slush! Okay, so most people wouldn't be excited by that, but I am. I'm also a glutton for punishment.
• It's all about the people. I've always been a "big program" kind of guy, have always equated my prospects of meeting other great, decent people and writers as a pure numbers game -- the more people in your program, the greater chance you have to meet others of the same mind. But it's surprising how sometimes what you've always thought you wanted will often be vastly different from what you actually need. From what I can tell, the small community at the University of Illinois is close and supportive -- really, all I can ask for. Plus, I was fortunate to meet some of my prospective class while there, and they all appear to be great people. I can't wait to bring in U of I's class of 2009 with them.
  

I could go on, but I think I'll shut my trap for now. I know decisions are still being made, rejections and acceptances are still being issued, and funding situations still have to be hashed out. Good luck to everyone out there still waiting, hoping, and deciding. April 15th can't come soon enough.

News and Notes

Seth has debuted another lengthy and thought-provoking article on his The Suburban Ecstasies, which can be accessed here: "The Best and Worst of 2008-9 Application Season." Not really a strict "best" or "worst" list, Seth's article is more a rumination on what MFA programs he thinks are headed up or down and everything in between. Really interesting stuff, but I think it's important to keep in mind that these are but one person's opinions, and as knowledgeable as Seth is on the subject of MFA programs, it would be unreasonable to expect him to wield expertise on all 300+ programs in the country, and similarly, to rely on his words alone as gospel. Nothing can replace meaningful individual research of a program.

In other news, I checked up on my Ohio State application status online, and found that I was rejected. Word on the MFA Blog is that nearly everyone's application has been updated, so check it out if you haven't heard from OSU yet. Annoyingly, I had to click on about three different buttons just to get to this view just to get the following message: "Your application for admission was not approved." Weaksauce. I was under no illusions that at this point in the game an OSU acceptance or waitlist was even possible, but a nicely worded rejection this is not. Here's hoping that the actual letter is a little more tactful.

The Dreaded Visit

I've finally managed to find a clearing in my work schedule, and have set up a visit to the University of Illinois campus this weekend, March 29-30. I say "the dreaded visit" in the title of this post not because I don't want to visit, but because I have an almost allergic aversion to meeting new people, much less meeting new people that I inexplicably feel like I need to impress. Which makes no sense. Their aim is to impress me, not the other way around, right? Chalk it up to my neurotic personality.

At any rate, the application calendar season, while almost over with just three weeks left until April 15, is far from definitively finished for many applicants. Scanning the usual MFA resources (MFA Blog, the Speakeasy, TSE), it's clear that there are still countless individuals waiting to hear from half, sometimes nearly all their prospective schools. It strikes me as almost crazy that some people, through no fault of their own, have yet to hear from the majority of their schools with just three weeks to go. Uprooting your entire life and potentially moving halfway across the country in just four months is no small feat for any person. Throw in a girlfriend/boyfriend/significant other/wife/husband/children, then you've got a whole world of things to do, to prepare for, to worry about, never mind the whole process of actually considering offers between different schools and the hundreds of variables that can come out of that. Stress wrapped in a handbasket to say the least, and I haven't even mentioned wait lists. My heart goes out to all those who are still currently sitting on their hands, waiting for the phone to ring or the inbox to fill up. My advice? Call or email the program. We're sitting at three weeks from the April 15 deadline, and something (rude response or otherwise) is better than sitting in limbo.

Rejection #6

My Johns Hopkins rejection finally arrived yesterday in the mail. A nice, personalized letter with my full name printed on it, as well as (as far as I can tell) a signature by the Chairman in real ink. It may sound silly, but I found it a nice touch in what is often a very impersonal process. That leaves three schools (counting Purdue) I'm waiting to hear final word from. Then I can get down to the business of choosing the program where I'll spend the next two to three years of my life.

Tuesday Review

A rejection on Monday, via mail. The culprit: Syracuse. Not a big surprise, like the other rejections. This one is less painful than most of the others, as I'd been just waiting for the letter at this point, and the idea of picking up and moving all the way to the state of New York was a little unrealistic. It's good to know for sure, however.

Also an acceptance today, via phone call, from Roosevelt University at Chicago, which I unfortunately had to turn down.

At any rate, this past week and a half has been a doozy, by far the busiest in terms of rejection and acceptance news. It is interesting how in the course of five weeks (from the beginning of February to the first week of March) I got four responses, and in the last week and a half, I got six more. I guess this time of year is the real active part of the season. The revised list:

University of Illinois - accepted
Western Michigan University - accepted
Roosevelt University (Chicago) - accepted
Purdue University - waitlisted *
University of Notre Dame - waitlisted
University of Michigan - rejected
Washington University - rejected
University of Iowa - rejected
Indiana University - rejected
Syracuse University - rejected

* Purdue's selection process relies on a system where the top 15-20 candidates for poetry and fiction each are selected. Out of these candidates, the final slots are eventually filled with permission from the Director of Composition, who has final say. This selection process works as a kind of quasi-waitlist. Details of Purdue's process can be found here.


No news:

Ohio State University
Johns Hopkins
Columbia College (Chicago)