7 Realities of Applying to Creative Writing MFA Programs

By Julia Dunn on April 24, 2017

If you’re a college senior looking to pursue creative writing at the graduate level, you may have spent the winter months applying to Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programs in creative writing. By now, the national MFA acceptance deadline (April 15) has passed, and if you’re going to go to grad school, you know where you’re going.

Having barely survived the grueling application process, waiting period, and hugely intense notification process, I write to identify seven realities of the MFA application process, all of which I discovered while applying and after applying.

•You need to rewrite and rewrite your personal statements until you never want to read about yourself again

Most MFA programs ask for a statement of purpose (SOP) in which you introduce yourself as a writer. Some schools even ask for a “personal history statement” in addition to the SOP. Then you need to provide a perfect, polished manuscript on top of that — that’s a lot of writing!

Image via Pixabay.com

In order to gain acceptance into your top programs, you need to ensure your personal essays are top notch quality, meaning they’re informative and engaging (and revealing, to a degree, at least enough to allow admissions committees to understand who you are).

I wrote my statement of purpose four different times and revised each of those four essays countless times before submitting, and I was sick of myself by the end. You know you’ve revised enough when you become so familiar with your goals and interests that they bore you — just remember that others (who don’t know you) will be impressed with you! 

•The waiting process is grueling

Right after you submit your application, you wonder why you haven’t heard back three days afterward (rampant impatience is normal). After about a month and a half, you’ll forget you even applied. By March, you’ll start checking portals multiple times a day to wait for the “Being Processed” tag to change into “View Admissions Decision.” It seems endless. 

•The Grad Cafe platform makes it more grueling

There’s not much more anxiety-inducing than seeing others post their acceptances every day on Grad Cafe (a website where students can log their notifications from different schools, the medium through which they were notified, and the date they were notified).

While you hope to see some movement from the schools you applied to, it’s also not so good to see someone post an acceptance notification for one of the schools you applied to (it means there’s one less spot you could be offered). Check Grad Cafe sparingly, and don’t freak out if you see someone getting accepted to your program — you might be next!

•There are MFA memes out there, and they do help relieve tension

I had no idea there was an entire Tumblr blog dedicated to creative writing memes. There are memes about being waitlisted, submitting creative writing to journals for publication, getting rejected, and even memes that capture the one-of-a-kind environment that is the creative writing workshop course.

Scrolling through these old-fashioned looking memes will make you laugh no matter how tense you feel about applying to MFAs themselves.

•Anxiety can permeate your entire body

It’s really hard to take care of your mind when you’re counting down the days until April 15 (and the days until your top school sends you an email or voicemail). My body felt heavy for weeks until I got into my top school, and I’d check my email every five to 10 minutes looking for a notification.

It’s important to tell your support system how to take care of you extra well during this time; let your partner or your friends know how you feel, and ask them to try and distract you if possible. Ask them to remind you of your value and your strength as a writer. 

•It’s really exciting to get your first acceptance

It means some professional writers believe your writing is good! Of course, the process is highly subjective (there is no real way to judge creative writing except whether it powerfully affects the reader, which again is a subjective measurement), but know that MFA programs are not easy to get into.

While you probably didn’t need to take the GRE to apply for your programs, a big writing portfolio requirement takes the place of the GRE, and it takes incredible amounts of focus and commitment to produce a writing sample that represents your abilities. 

•Join the MFA Draft Facebook group at your own risk

The MFA Draft group (a Facebook support/networking group for students applying to MFAs nationwide) makes it incredibly easy to start comparing yourself to other writers, comparing your acceptances with those of others, and worrying about your worth as a scholar and writer. Don’t worry about those folks who got into Iowa Writers’ Workshop. There are top MFA programs nationally, but what’s most important is getting into your top MFA programs personally. You may find location a more important factor to you than the financing of your MFA. Remember each student has an individual situation, and you do not need to compare yourself to anyone. 

The MFA process is a unique one, by far. Congratulations to those who got into MFA programs they wanted, and congratulations to those who are deferring acceptance (or waiting to reapply for next year). Applying for MFAs is brave; after all, submitting your creative writing to a panel of judges is brave in itself.

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