[I encourage any who are interested to discuss/debate the new rankings in the comment field below; I'd be curious to hear what other folks think, and as always I love a good discussion/debate].
The article is here; the top ten graduate creative writing programs, according to The Atlantic, are listed below. Also included below is a listing of the thirty-five full-residency programs deemed notable by The Atlantic in their July 2007 MFA rankings and articles; below, these programs are indexed against the TSE Composite rankings (see right-hand sidebar) to emphasize how closely the "notable" programs of the analysis done by The Atlantic track the TSE ordering of programs.
Unfortunately, while this is the first "ranking" of MFA programs by a major media outlet in a decade, it's not, in most respects at least, much of a ranking at all: the "top ten" schools are listed alphabetically, without ordering, and only ten schools are listed total.
The article does, however, list five notable schools in each of eight other categories, which makes it slightly more robust fare than would otherwise have been the case. While I won't reproduce those other rankings here (I do advise all to buy the current issue of The Atlantic), I'll mention some highlights of these secondary rankings and the accompanying article:
* The eight "secondary ranking" categories are: "Five Programs With Notable Alumni," "Five Highly Selective Programs," "Five Programs With Distinguished Faculty," Five Innovative/Unique Programs," "Five Well-Funded Programs," "Five Up-and-Coming Programs," "Five Top Low-Residency M.F.A. Programs," "Five Top Ph.D. Programs in Creative Writing"
* Florida State seems to have garnered much respect for placing so many fiction writers in the annual Best New American Voices anthology (clearly one of the major considerations in these "rankings," just as placement in anthologies is one basis for the rankings on this site [see right-hand sidebar]) ; also, I suppose: "Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler...teaches at Florida State"
* Syracuse takes, impliedly, a major hit (thus, missing out on the top ten) for losing novelists Raymond Carver and Tobias Wolff (all of these "rankings" seem heavily weighted toward consideration of the various schools' fiction faculties)
* Boston University's surprising showing is clearly based on the strength of their faculty and recent graduates, and little or perhaps nothing else ("BU was a pretty competitive environment—a real and helpful spur to me," says Peter Ho Davies, now teaching at Michigan, "though I’m not sure it was an ideal environment for all"); this makes the exclusion of Columbia from the top ten all the more inexplicable, as it strikes this writer that Columbia has only a strong faculty and strong graduates to offer and little else (the financial aid is particularly bad, the acceptance rate particularly high [as the article notes, the entering class in each genre is seven times the size of the most selective ten to twelve schools], and the general presentation of the school in its media relations particularly off-putting)
* Brown University, though missing out on the top ten (and likely the biggest exclusion from that list), is rewarded for being among the "five most highly selective programs"; and yet Cornell is inexplicably absent from the "most selective" list, "inexplicably" because it's the hardest MFA program to get into in the world, by a statistically-significant margin
* If you've been following this site, you'll already know the top three low-residency programs, so the only additions here are Antioch and Pacific
* Three of the five most "innovative/unique" programs were already identified as such by Kealey (and this site), those being Brown, UNLV, and UNC at Wilmington; the real surprise here is the addition of Chatham University
* The top "well-funded" programs are exactly those identified by Kealey
* Irvine's director confirmed what Kealey (and this site) have recently speculated will begin to occur more and more often: top programs (in this case Irvine) losing applicants to slightly less well-known but better-funded alternatives (in this case, two students lost to Texas; the director at Irvine on this startling development: "we lost two top candidates to Texas, and we had really not been losing anybody we’d accepted before that") ; another anecdote: "Columbia...has lost out on a number of applicants. Roman Skaskiw, a 30-year-old Stanford grad and former Army captain who served as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne in both Iraq and Afghanistan, was accepted at Columbia, 'but when they told me what it cost,' he said, 'it made my decision very easy.' He's at Iowa, which now funds all its students (although not equally) for both years"
* The list of "up-and-coming" programs is again eeriely similar to what one might have surmised using the resources on this site (particularly comparing to 1997 U.S. News & World Report rankings to the TKS/LJPW rankings, and also taking a gander at the acceptance rate data): Mississippi, Brooklyn, Ohio State, Wisconsin, and (the one pleasant surprise) Rutgers at Newark, which is just starting up its program and still (if rumors are to be believed) has only a modestly-sized applicant pool (hint hint)
* Other schools favorably mentioned: Alabama, Arkansas, Montana; and an interesting piece of news, which I hadn't realized: University of Alaska at Anchorage is unveiling a low-residency program (sounds cool to me; my sister used to live there and I loved visiting her)
But what does the "top ten" ranking really teach us? Not much, as the only "surprises" here are Boston University and, to a lesser extent, Florida State; frankly, those who follow MFA programs closely would probably deem the presence of Boston University here a significant blow to the credibility of the entire "ranking," as to rank a non-terminal degree in the field (MA) right up there with the very best terminal degree (MFA) programs seems a dubious decision at best. While obviously not every MFA attendee will want to teach upon graduation, it's nice to at least theoretically have that option--so it certainly must be considered a major strike against any program that its conferred degree doesn't qualify one to teach at the college level.
[NB: The most glaring omission in the rankings below is clearly Brown University; followed, I would think, by Columbia University and Indiana University ("prestigious"). Say what you want about Columbia's insulting financial aid packages, they still make a perennially strong case for inclusion in any top ten ranking. I'd also give a shout out to University of Washington here; fortunately, the article, while not ranking Washington in the top ten, does note the strength of the program's financial aid package].
Other than that, all we've learned here is what we already knew: that the Kealey Scale and the LJPW Reader Poll are fairly accurate depictions of which schools are considered the best in America, and that despite the transparency of the methodology used in the Kealey Scale and the LJPW Reader Poll, schools will undoubtedly start citing The Atlantic rankings instead, despite their seeming lack of any even quasi-scientific grounding. Indeed, it's not clear exactly where these rankings came from; I'm working on finding that out, but the best I can tell thus far is that the quality of a school's poetry program was nearly entirely discounted, and the "quality" of the [generally, fiction] faculty (as determined by fame, not reputed teaching acumen) was deemed paramount.
[NB: "Delaney made in-person visits to about 30 creative writing programs and interviewed program directors, faculty, students, and graduates of many more...Delaney found that there was enough consensus of opinion to produce a top-ten list." Hmm...].
I must say, I have to be a little skeptical of the strenuousness of the research done by The Atlantic when Irvine, Michigan, and Texas are all referenced as having "500 applications" for "5 or 6" spots; in fact, as with the rest of the analysis done by The Atlantic, those numbers wrongly emphasize the fiction programs at those three schools: in reality, the total applicant pool numbers supplied for those schools are approximately correct, but each of those schools accepts "5 or 6" students per genre, making the acceptance rates for all three about twice (or more: don't forget non-fiction applicants) what you'd otherwise expect based upon reading the article(s).
I've listed below the ten schools "ranked" the best by The Atlantic, with their TKS and LJPW rankings in parentheses (it's interesting, particularly, to compare the ranking done by The Atlantic with the Live Journal/Poets & Writers Poll, to see whether actual MFA applicants concur with what professional journalists say):
University of California at Irvine
(TKS: #1; LJPW: #10)
University of Texas, Michener Center
(TKS: #2; LJPW: #4)
University of Michigan
(TKS: #3; LJPW: #3)
Cornell University
(TKS: #4; LJPW: #6)
University of Virginia
(TKS: #6; LJPW: #4)
Johns Hopkins University
(TKS: #8; LJPW: #16)
University of Iowa
(TKS: #12; LJPW: #1)
New York University
(TKS: #14; LJPW: #17)
Florida State University
(TKS: #19; LJPW: #26)
Boston University
(TKS: #23; LJPW: #31)
Below are the TSE Composite rankings (i.e., the number which precedes each school is its ranking in the TSE). If a school is listed here without brackets, that school is deemed notable by The Atlantic; schools not referenced by The Atlantic are in brackets with the word "OMITTED" beside them.
Of the thirty-five "notable" programs below, thirty-three (94%) are in the top fifty-two programs in the TSE Composite ranking; of course, of the two schools deemed notable by The Atlantic but not listed in the TSE, one (Rutgers) could not be listed in the TSE because it hasn't started operations yet.
This suggests that the unscientific confidence rate--as between the TSE rankings and The Atlantic--is approximately 97%.
It also tells us that the University of Massachusetts got royally fucked by The Atlantic. Don't they know that UMass grad Natasha Trethaway just won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry?
TSE Composite Rankings, With Atlantic Status
1: University of Michigan
1: University of Texas
3: Cornell University
3: University of Virginia
5: University of California at Irvine
5: Indiana University
7: University of Iowa
8: Syracuse University
9: [OMITTED: University of Massachusetts]
10: Brown University
11: Johns Hopkins University
12: University of Houston
13: Columbia University
13: New York University
13: University of Oregon
16: University of Washington
17: [OMITTED: Washington University at St. Louis]
18: University of Montana
19: [OMITTED: University of Florida]
20: University of Minnesota
21: [OMITTED: The New school]
22: Florida State University
23: [OMITTED: University of Arizona]
24: University of Wisconsin
24: [OMITTED: University of Notre Dame]
26: University of Arkansas
27: Boston University
27: Arizona State University
29: Sarah Lawrence College
30: [OMITTED: University of North Carolina at Greensboro]
31: Hollins College
32: University of North Carolina at Wilmington
33: [OMITTED: George Mason University]
34: University of Alabama
35: [OMITTED: University of California at Davis]
36: [OMITTED: University of Pittsburgh]
36: [OMITTED: Colorado State University]
38: [OMITTED: Purdue University]
38: University of Nevada at Las Vegas
40: [OMITTED: Penn State University]
40: Brooklyn College
42: Ohio State University
43: [OMITTED: University of Illinois]
44: [OMITTED: Bowling Green State University]
45: University of Mississippi
46: [OMITTED: Emerson College]
47: University of Utah
48: [OMITTED: University of New Hampshire]
49: [OMITTED: Southern Illinois University]
50: Hunter College
50: [OMITTED: Texas State University at San Marcos]
52: New Mexico State University
Atlantic Notables Not Listed in the TSE Composite Ranking:
North Carolina State University
Rutgers University at Newark *
* Program has not yet started.
Monday, July 16, 2007
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47 comments:
I agree. It’s annoying they didn’t rank the top 10, though if they did, I imagine it might look something like this (at least based on my sense of how these programs are regarded in the academic and publishing worlds).
1. University of Iowa
2. University of Michigan
3. University of California at Irvine
4. Cornell University
5. Johns Hopkins University
6. New York University
7. University of Texas, Michener Center
8. University of Virginia
9. Florida State University
10. Boston University
I agree that it’s strange that Columbia and Brown were left off the list. Also, what happened to Houston? That used to be the #2 program.
E.,
Here's mine (from The Atlantic top ten); keep in mind my slight poetry bias:
1. University of Iowa
2t. University of Michigan
2t. University of Virginia
4t. California at Irvine
4t. Cornell University
6t. New York University
6t. Johns Hopkins University
8. University of Texas
And, well behind the other 8...
9. Florida State University
10. Boston University
Yeah, I agree. Virginia should probably be a little higher and Texas a little lower.
You mention your "slight poetry bias" as if that were a small matter, but it speaks to a pretty major problem with all of these rankings of creative writing programs.
In practice, nobody ever applies to, gets accepted into, and then attends "a creative writing program." They apply to, are accepted to, and then attend programs in fiction writing, poetry writing, or in some cases, nonfiction writing. Creative Writing "programs" as such are an administrative nicety that doesn't reflect much about what are actually very separate programs.
Totally apart from the relative quality of faculty in different branches within any creative writing program, many have totally different course requirements and available funding opportunities/scholarships. I'd go so far as to say as that "Creative Writing Programs" don't actually exist, and what actually exists are programs in fiction, poetry, or nonfiction writing.
What would be the use of rankings which evaluated the combined quality and prestige of different schools' law and medicine programs I wonder? I think this only a slight exaggeration--that is, if we're going to evaluate totally different programs as if they were one program.
Speaking from experience, I attended a highly ranked MFA program with a reputation pretty clearly based on its poetry program. But it was absolute garbage on the fiction side, and anybody who attended it on the basis of its high ranking in this made-up category of "Creative Writing" got screwed.
Paul,
An interesting point, and yet...
...if I'd judged law schools based on the ranking of their "trial advocacy" programs (my present field of employment), I would have gone to Stetson.
Every ranking of graduate schools--law, medicine, and so on--carries with it separate rankings for sub-specialties, and it does seem that some schools ranked high overall are pretty crap when it comes to certain specialties. I think the key is that rankings are supposed to (ideally) take into account all strengths and all weaknesses of a college/university, not because the quality of the fiction program at [insert school here] really matters to the poets there, or vice versa, but because a school's overall reputation in the field does hinge to a degree on whether it boasts strong programs in both poetry and fiction (as for playwrighting and non-fiction, I think in the former instance there just aren't enough programs [aside from Yale, that is] to establish a comprehensive prestige scale, and in the latter instance there are more programs but the programs are generally so small in size, student body-wise, that their pull is minimal). It's for this reason, I think, that JHU suffers: novelists love it, poets are a little bewildered at the alleged allure. Likewise Irvine. In the other direction, I think Cornell, Houston, and Oregon are bigger draws for poets than for novelists.
The rankings measure what they measure, I guess: not fiction or poetry programs per se, but overall reputation. That said, most of the top schools (I mean, in the top twenty-five) are fairly strong in both poetry and fiction, hence their placement.
S.
Paul:
It perhaps varies from program to program, but I disagree that the poetry and fiction segments are totally different programs.
Your workshops will be totally separate, but nothing else will normally. You non-workshop classes will normally be taken by people from all three genres and taught by all three genres. And hopefully you will interact with the fiction and non-fiction students in social and artistic events.
I can understand the annoyance at a ficiton bias, but it has to be expected when fiction divisions are almost always larger and attract more applicants.
Seth:
I think you have a good analysis on these "rankings" (seems more like some random authors top ten, as you note the lack of coherent criteria)
I know you like to take pot-shots at Columbia on here, so maybe I shouldn't bother defending, but I have to say I disagree with your comment that Columbia offers great faculty and student success and nothing else. What is the other stuff that they are lacking in? They have weak funding (although it is improving)... so is funding the only other factor? It seems to me Columbia is very competitive in every factor other than funding. Faculty and student success, as you point out, but also location, diversity of faculty and student work, access to internships and other "connections," peer group, etc.
Hey, I found this interview with the author of the Atlantic article on Earthgoat this morning. You don't need an Atlantic subscription to read it.
Regarding this: "...I must say, I have to be a little skeptical of the strenuousness of the research done by The Atlantic when Irvine, Michigan, and Texas are all referenced as having "500 applications" for "5 or 6" spots..."
I, too, respond with a hearty, "WTF?!11" Seems like the folks at the Atlantic didn't check their facts. Didn't get Iowa get over 700 apps this year?
Also, is it wrong that I ran to the nearest Borders when I heard that the Atlantic was running an article on MFAs? I'm normal, right? Right, guys? Guys? Where are you going?
Lincoln,
Okay, I admit it--I'm very biased against Columbia. I think it's one thing to have terrible funding, it's another thing altogether to have your entire media relations apparatus directed toward making prospective students feel abashed over their amply-warranted criticism of that funding. Everything I've ever seen from Columbia is designed to project the program's ire over their under-funding toward precisely the party least responsible for it: incoming students. I don't like institutions that traffic in misinformation (or disinformation), and I think Columbia's website is cleverly structured to undermine the aspirations of desperate people; the attitude is, "Need funding? You figure it out. Who are you that we should feel responsible for your finances?" Which would be fine, if we weren't in an environment where Texas is offering everyone $20,000+/year. Which Columbia is well aware of and, apparently, terrified about.
All that said, I do think Columbia's other drawbacks include: a student body too large; acceptance rates too high (and yields too high, meaning the school isn't getting their top picks nearly as often as other places, which I imagine affects professors' enthusiasm toward student work); a bad location within NYC (though I admit NYC itself is a good place to be a writer); a high cost of living; atrocious funding and, what's worse, no institutional shame over that fact (which, in my experience, leads to the creation of an FA Office more adept at stonewalling than assisting students); a faculty which is overrated and overextended; a reputation for "attracting agents" which is based in large part on a) the fact that the school is located in a certain city, and b) the name of the school (one of the few ways the MFA program truly does benefit from the anti-Arts institution it's associated with); and finally, there's the possibility of internships and such but also the sheer impracticality of doing any, as to survive two years at Columbia you're probably going to need a part-time job. Which is the problem with "funding" issues--they don't only implicate funding, they implicate a host of ancillary workaday circumstances, such as whether you can afford a car to get away on occasion, whether you can afford to enjoy the City (the school's biggest asset), and so on. Essentially, quality-of-life is determined, in large part, by funding. I say this as an attorney who's worked in public service for years, and who still vividly recalls counting pennies for his dinner. Literally.
But hey, Columbia's still a top-twenty program--easily--despite all that, and I am willing to recognize that (if nothing else!)
:-)
Be well,
S.
P.S. MK, thanks for the article link! Clearly you're not the only one obsessed with this topic... Right? Of course, it's not just me--ever since I put the MFA rankings up in January, probably like 100,000 people have visited this site(!)
P.S. It's never a good sign when a journalist makes one inexplicable pick in his "rankings" (Boston University) and spends much of his main article talking about a single professor, Ha Jin, from a single school (Boston University), and then it turns out that he himself (the journalist) is a graduate of Boston University. Yikes.
Also, the disconnect he mentions between MFA professors and MFA students over being "well-read" is scary.
Well Seth, I'd have to say I think you completely misread the tone of the School of the Arts website at Columbia... and it also seems like you are drawing extremely harsh and broad opinions on a the writing program from merely one website that isn't even run by the writing program. It is true that many writing MFA programs have great funding, but it doesn't seem to be as true for other MFAs and the School of the Arts website your reference is for all the MFAs.
I would have to disagree with you about both the size and location. UWS is a great area of NYC and a much cheaper place to live than SoHo or something. The program is a tad too large for my taste, but I personally vastly prefer a large program to a small one. Personal preference I guess.
Some of your comments don't make any sense to me though. For instance: "there's the possibility of internships and such but also the sheer impracticality of doing any," make little sense when I know dozens and dozens of people who are at internships.
Whether the faculty is overhyped is a matter of opinion (In all honestly I can't think of any other facutly that is as interesting as me, but I highly value diversity and mor eexperimental writing, and I realize most students aren't concerned with this) but what do you mean by overextended? Columbia has a large student body, but also a large nubmer of teachers. What about them is overextended?
Your point about funding being able to affect other matters is well taken though.
Although I’m still surprised by the inclusion of Florida State and Boston University on his top-10 list, I just read Delaney’s article, and I have to say he gives a pretty fair account of the current MFA scene. If I were a prospective student applying to programs, I would have a pretty good sense of what programs I might want to consider. If reputation and prestige were the most important factors for me, then programs like Iowa and Irvine would obviously be at the top of my list. If I simply wanted time to write and a good funding situation, then a program like Texas might be more appealing. He also does a good job of pointing out the shortcomings of certain programs without taking any cheap shots. For example, he mentions how expensive Columbia is, but at the same time points out that they’re making efforts to improve this situation. In general, he makes a point of debunking some of the common myths and stereotypes about certain programs (in both his article and his interview) and I personally appreciated that.
As for the list, I think he got it basically right. All but two of the schools—Florida State and Boston University—are schools I would have included on my own list. We could probably all think of a half dozen schools that might deserve those spots more (Columbia, Brown, University of Houston, etc.), but the rest of the list is hard to debate. Personally, I think it’s a much more helpful list than, say, Tom Kealey’s (at least for the general applicant), since it seems to take into account a wide range of factors including the reputations of faculty and the success of recent graduates, rather than placing so much emphasis on something like funding—an important factor, but not necessarily the most important for most applicants.
Pretty remarkable that Pacific has been added to the top low-res list, as this brand-spanking-new West coast school has only graduated two classes so far. My only guess, therefore, is they are basing their rankings on faculty.
To be fair, Columbia would be a badass school to go to if one were to get good funding. Didn't Allen Ginsberg dye the fountains red when he went to school there? I remember reading that somewhere...
ETA: ...and it would also be badass to go there, regardless of funding...
Allen freaking Ginsberg!
In response to Seth's question about how these programs were ranked:
I don’t want to sound like I’m defending Delaney, but I can speak a little to the methodology he might have used for his rankings, since I met with him at AWP in Atlanta last March. Basically, he was going around interviewing a large number of faculty, students, and recent graduates of various MFA Programs and having them fill out surveys. I can’t remember the specific categories of the surveys, but they seemed very similar to the categories he used in his article (name 10 programs that are well funded, name 10 programs with distinguished faculty, etc.) The only condition was that you were not allowed to include programs you had graduated from or were affiliated with. I’m sure he did the same thing during his campus visits to MFA Programs and during his interviews with various faculty and directors. I have no idea how heavily he weighed these lists in his own rankings, but considering the fact that these lists were produced by people who actually know something about these programs, and considering the fact that he probably amassed hundreds and hundreds of them (probably just at AWP alone), I think this adds some validity to his rankings and to his article. At the very least, it’s clear that he researched these programs much more thoroughly than either US News or Tom Kealey, both of whom spoke to a comparatively small number of people.
Personally, I found Delaney to be extremely open and unbiased. He wasn’t affiliated with any particular program and seemed genuinely interested in what people had to say. At the same time, he was quick to challenge assertions you might make about other programs, always questioning the validity of those assertions or countering with something he had heard to the contrary. In short, he seemed to be most concerned with getting at the truth about these programs and had little time for rumors and hearsay. In this way, he struck me as very good journalist, someone who was trying very hard to approach this process thoroughly and objectively. I’m sure that he knew that whatever he wrote was going to stir up some controversy, but in his defense, I think that’s why he took the time to speak to so many people.
Lincoln & MK,
When I first started researching MFA programs--and by now, it feels like I've done about as much research as Kealey and Delaney have--the prevailing meme was that the only school in America which could give Iowa a run for its money was Columbia, and Columbia might even have the edge because of location. As I mentioned above, if there's one thing I hate it's a sacred cow--i.e., disinformation reified as gospel--and so when I found out that the conventional wisdom was so off the mark I'm sure it very much affected my thinking about how, going forward, Columbia should be addressed in any MFA-related discourse. As far as I was concerned, a lot of damage had to be undone; it's a little bit like the task our next President will have. Despite that, and despite my strong negative feelings about Columbia (it didn't help that their boosters seemed, to my eye, to be fudging the school's admissions data, too, to bump up its stature in selectivity indexes), I've always said it's a top ten to top fifteen school, and in my response to the Delaney "rankings" said it was probably the biggest omission after Brown--and I intimated that Florida State and Boston University were miscast as top ten programs--so that would have my personal rankings putting Columbia at #10. That I'm still seen as being virulently anti-Columbia (heck, a lot of schools would kill to be considered #10 by anyone who's done a lot of research on MFAs) is, I think, 75% due to my over-heated language, which I really should moderate, and probably 25% due to the fact that Columbia's biggest boosters won't be entirely satisfied until the Lions crack my personal top five. So it goes. I think Columbia deserves a major hit for being 25 years behind in its funding of its students (and my comment about internships was directed at the impracticality of unpaid internships), and as I (like many others) think funding is indicative of how much a school supports its students--and because I've been personally affected, re: the life of someone once close to me, by an educational institution not meeting their financial responsibilities--I'm not inclined to be generous. I don't know anyone else's financial circumstances; I can say that, from where I stand, if you've ever had a poor credit rating because of massive student loan debt, if you've ever rolled quarters for lunch money, if you've ever not been able to offer the best possible Christmas to a child under your care, if you've ever had a university withhold thousands of dollars owed to you due to callous indifference as to whether you lived or died or starved or dropped out of school, your attitude toward Columbia probably won't be that they get a pass because it's only an affiliated website which tells young artists to go screw themselves in the rear end if they want funding. So, I do stand by my #10 ranking of Columbia and, in my book, they should thank their stars I don't draw from my own past financial experiences even more than I already have to add yet another zero to the end of their ranking. If my language is overheated, I should be clear that it's not directed at the students of Columbia ("Some of my best friends are Columbia grads" etcetera etcetera) but at the administration of the MFA program, which long ago should have parlayed the program's supposed excellence in graduate placement/graduate kudos into some additional funding, and has no one to blame but themselves for their failure to do so. And why anyone would think the administration of an Ivy League school needs defending (and I've dealt with two thus far in my life)...
Edward,
Fair points, I didn't mean to suggest Delaney was crooked in any sense of the word, simply that even he must have felt a little sheepish when his article's biggest shocker turned out to be his alma mater. I think the coincidence would be less glaring if Delaney, as well-intentioned as he was, hadn't let his obvious comfort with the fiction scene lead him to exclude--pretty much altogether--discussion and consideration of poetry programs (if you read the article and count how many times he talks about "novels" and "fiction" as compared to "poems" and "poets"...). I can tell you that, as a poet, I'm not sure how well-served I feel by those rankings; I'll admit I'm more comfortable with Kealey's, as I think he talked to a lot more folks than you realize, and funding was only one of more than a dozen criteria he applied in his consideration. Delaney seems like a nice guy who way, way over-weights "faculty reputation" as a factor, particularly in an article which makes pretty clear (and I appreciate his candor here) that "famous" professors often see themselves as a gift to their home institutions, and their teaching prowess as largely immaterial. As the son of a [former] hard-working public school teacher, it's a little appalling to hear of any teacher for whom teaching is anything but a first and over-riding priority. I'm not sure students paying through the teeth for a degree are obligated to care overmuch about the ongoing professional writing careers of authors already thirty times more accomplished in their own fields than most of their students will ever be. I'm surprised more schools don't have a teach-or-get-out-of-the-way mentality.
Be well,
Seth
EdwardK:
I agree with what you said. I thought the article itself was pretty fair and did a good job of highlighting the current state.
There are few programs I wouldn't put on the top 10 that they do, but they make sense even if I disgree. The only 2 that don't make sense are the two you point out: FSU and BU. And the troubling thing is, as Seth points out, the author went to BU and spends much of the articel talking about BU. Seems biased.
Seth:
I really don't want to belabor a point on Columbia. But I'll try to respond fairly succicently. First let me say that, while I would consider Columbia top 5, I think your rankings in general are pretty fair. I disagree, but I have zero problem with you saying Columbia is #10 or #15 or anything like that. Not a problem.
The only thing that annoys me is that
a) You seem to use every opportunity you have to attack Columbia on your blog, even when there are plenty of other targest you could use. For example, you spend a lot of time talking about how Columbia's isn't really selective because it takes so many people, despite the fact Arizona is a big progam that is even less selective with your numbers. You always make a point to attack Columbia's funding, which while very poor is hardly the ONLY poorly funded program nor is it the only poorly funded program in your top 25. My point here is that you seemed to almost be on some quest to take down Columbia, despite having no relation to program... a fact you seem to admit in your post. If you go through your blog and count th enumber of times you mention this or that program I bet you'll find you mention Columbia more than any other program not named Iowa, and almost every time it is to attack it.
I have no problem with legitimate critiques, but so much critiquing and tending to only use Columbia as your program to attack sullies the objectivness of your rankings and information.
B) B is frankly I think you a bit misinformed on a few things and also fudge the facts in others. For an example, when you pick Columbia as an example of how large schools aren't winning as many awards/publications per student you redo your statistics to compare it to smaller programs. Fair enough. However, you seem to be ranking only POETRY awards, yet you are comparing Columbias entire student body (fiction AND non-fiction included) and making statistical corrections based on that. This is clearly completely false. Columbia's student body of 70 a year is mostly fiction and non-fiction is as big as poetry. There are hardly 70 poets or even 35 per year.
So, I do stand by my #10 ranking of Columbia and, in my book, they should thank their stars I don't draw from my own past financial experiences even more than I already have to add yet another zero to the end of their ranking.
See, this is what I'm talking about. On the one hand, you present your rankings as statistical and objective, but on the other hand you clearly show a personal bias at work and think programs hsould thank their stars that you don't rank them even lower... based on your experience in an unrelated program in an unrelated field at a different university? It undermines your credibility.
but at the administration of the MFA program, which long ago should have parlayed the program's supposed excellence in graduate placement/graduate kudos into some additional funding, and has no one to blame but themselves for their failure to do so
Not to get too pendantic, but I honestly think the heads of the MFA program aren't to blame. It is the heads of the university as a whole and the heads of School of the Art who have done the most to damage arts funding. However, Columbia just go the largest endowment earmarked for financial aid ever in the history of schools, so hopefully some of that will come to the writing program and all this will be moot.
--
That said, you comments make me think we are fairly alike. I too dislike the scared cow and standard line of thought, especially when that standard line is incorrect. Oddly enough, that is exactly what annoys me about what I've mentioned above. In your reading you came accross a common thinking that Columbia was the only one giving Iowa a run for its money. When I did my research, I heard nothing but bad-mouthing and people, like you as you admit, who were trying to bring the program down. I can understand trying to take a program to task for being overrated, but to me it seems like the tables have turned and everyone is vastly underrating Columbia.
Okay, I'll stop there. Columbia is only one program and this blog is hardly devoted to it. I think your blog has a lot of useful information and is very helpful to new students (although that only makes me sadder when misinformation is spread) and agian, I think your ranking of Columbia is perfectly fine.
Okay, I'm going to go make a thread on the MFA Blog about Large Versus Small programs for us to argue in ;)
all best
Lincoln
Seth,
Thanks for your response. I agree that Delaney’s article tends to focus on fiction more than poetry and also that his inclusion of Boston University is bound to raise a few eyebrows, given the fact he went there (those are both great points). But my honest impression of him was that he was very much devoted to doing the most thorough and unbiased evaluation of programs to date, and I personally think he has.
I know that you contribute to Kealey’s blog and are a fan of his book, and I personally think he’s providing a valuable service to prospective students, but I don’t think anyone can say that Kealey did nearly as much research for his book as Delaney did for his article. From what I gather, Delaney devoted a good part of the last year of his life to visiting over thirty programs personally and talking with professors and students, conducting an exhaustive survey, and researching the actual numbers and facts in regards to enrollment, financial aid, graduate success, etc. Kealey, in his own words, interviewed a little over “forty professors, program directors, and students” and visited only a small handful of programs while researching his guide. We’re talking about the difference between visiting all of these programs personally and interviewing several hundreds of people (maybe even over a thousand) and interviewing a little more than 40 people total. I’m not saying that Kealey doesn’t know a lot more about MFA Programs now than he did when he wrote his guide, only that his rankings were based on a limited amount of research. Of course, in his defense, I’m sure he didn’t have the funds or the resources that the Atlantic provided Delaney with.
As for Kealey’s criteria for ranking schools, he may have considered over a dozen factors, but some of the things he didn’t consider were graduate publications, the number of graduates who now hold faculty positions at universities, the reputation of the MFA faculty, and the general prestige of the school. From a professional standpoint these were all important factors for me and, I suspect, for a lot of people. After all, when people look at rankings what they really want to know is how these programs are regarded generally, and to ignore things like the success of recent graduates or the prestige of the faculty or the reputation of the school is to ignore some pretty important criteria.
Finally, I don’t know how heavily Delaney weighed the reputation of the faculty in his rankings. All I know is that I have studied with some famous writers who were great teachers and some famous writers who were completely apathetic. I have also studied with relatively unaccomplished writers who were both. Thus, I don’t think that one can make the assumption that a famous writer is more likely to be apathetic than an obscure one. I just think that some writers like teaching and some don’t. In the meantime, the prestige of the faculty can certainly help a program in a number of ways. 1) A prestigious faculty tends to draw a larger applicant pool, which usually results in a more selective and talented group of students. 2) A famous faculty member can often help students professionally, whether it be writing a letter of recommendation for an academic job or a residency or simply providing a blurb for a book. 3) Famous writers tend to attract other famous writers. In my experience, a lot of them know each other, and with that comes certain perks: visiting appointments, campus readings, etc. I’m not saying that faculty reputation should be weighed more heavily than any other criteria (it definitely shouldn’t) only that it’s not a completely irrelevant factor, regardless of whether the person is a good teacher or not.
Anyway, sorry to be so long-winded and thanks for your response. This has been a fun discussion.
Thanks, all of you, for this incredibly helpful discussion! I'm just beginning the process of applying to MFA programs for Fall 2008, and until tonight, my list simply included Iowa (which is a good start, it seems, according to y'all!) Thanks!! Any tips GREATLY appreciated!! Cheers,
Meg
Edward,
All good points. Sounds like Delaney did even more research than I realized. I wish I could see the hard data(!) I also agree that you never know who'll be a good teacher--I just hope it's something MFAs consider when making hiring decisions(!) :-) While I do think Kealey considered general reputation (and while I tend to be very much a fan of his focus on funding), I don't know Tom personally and, while admitting my Kealey Scale bias, I should make clear it's not a bias re: Kealey but rather any methodology which weights funding heavily over what I've elsewhere called "soft data" (e.g., quality of faculty). I'm very much a "hard data" guy and while some of Delaney's measures of quality are spot on--and while I like that he used the survey format in gathering data--I always trust hard numbers (acceptance rates, financial aid packages, and so on) more than things which can't easily be quantified. Okay, all that said: sounds like the rankings by The Atlantic are a lot more thoughtful than I first supposed, and I'll have to keep studying them. Disappointed about BU, but it's certainly not a dealbreaker.
Lincoln,
What can I say? I'll have to concede a bias against Columbia and pretty much leave it there. My particular bias re: funding is because I don't mind a school having poor funding, I mind when they take an attitude about it which I find offensive to students. So I must admit, for me it's not so much the packages (though, there is that), it's the institutional stance on the packages. I'm sure I make too much of it, but gosh if it didn't stick in my craw and I just can't seem to shake it. As to my comment about ranking Columbia #100, I really should hasten to clarify a misunderstanding you may have: I didn't create the numbers for either the TKS, LJPW, or TSE rankings. They're not "my" rankings, so my heated comments on Columbia hardly undermine their credibility. My comment about ranking Columbia #100 referred to my personal ("in my head") rankings of schools, as in, "Columbia's lucky I don't think even worse of them...!" But if you look at the Kealey Scale, you'll see Columbia is roughly in the exact same spot as in the LJPW Reader Poll, which is inarguably based on the opinions of others, not me. While I had to do some data analysis and a little bit of textual interpretation to turn Kealey's book into a ranking system, I can hardly be accused (not that you're doing so) of deep-sixing Columbia when it fares as well in TKS as in LJPW(!) Nor could any school placed in the top 15--out of 350 programs--ever really be claimed to have been mistreated, especially when all of us acknowledge (and as you can see in my "List of Schools Which Have Appeared in Every TSE Ranking") Columbia is clearly first tier, whether we say fifth or eighth or tenth or fifteenth.
If I made a mathematical error in the rankings, I can assure you it wasn't intentional. I was an English major and a B/C math student in high school and college. While I think we do still disagree about a few numbers--Iowa has 50, not 60 fiction/poetry students per year, as one small example--generally speaking any major calculation errors would simply have been oversights on my part, which I can correct. You should remember, though, that one of the reasons the numbers are in places indeterminate--or approximations--is because the schools themselves (Columbia, but also every other school) refuse to release any meaningful data, making so much of all this guesswork and/or a treasure hunt for information which should be made widely available.
Be well,
Seth
P.S. I do realize it's kind of a dick move to say bad things about your A.M. I apologize--I'm an emotional guy and let my rhetoric get ahead of me as often as not, but it's no excuse. For a whole host of reasons, anyone who's attending Columbia and making the numbers work should be, and I'm sure is, pretty psyched about where they landed and wouldn't trade it for the world. Nor should they. The Columbia name is about as powerful as any in the U.S. or abroad, and I'm sure the school will be addressing its admitted funding problems in the coming years--hey, and if my heckling adds even a pinch of salt to that burgeoning avalanche of institutional inertia, I've done you a solid(!) In a way. :-)
Seriously, I do apologize.
S.
Seth,
Thanks again for your response. As I said, I don’t want to seem like I’m defending Delaney’s rankings completely. I just think that his list is basically accurate (with the exception of maybe one or two schools) and that his approach was very thorough. In short, if I had to compare his list to the list from 1997, I’d say that his is definitely more reflective of the current state of MFA Programs. For example, I think Arizona, a previous top 10 school, is no longer what it once was, and that a school like Texas has gotten better (or at least more popular).
As for Kealey’s ratings, I really don’t have a problem with them existing. I just think that a lot of prospective students (at least prior to The Atlantic article) were maybe taking them too seriously when they weren’t really telling the whole story. I think for a certain type of person they might be perfect, but they’re certainly not for everyone. Like you, I’m also a fan of hard data, but that’s actually one of the problems I had with Kealey’s rankings. There were a lot of things he could have factored in and measured, but didn’t—either because it would have taken too long or because he simply didn’t want to. For example, he could have measured the book publications of recent graduates (say in the past ten years) or the number of graduates who had acquired faculty positions at universities, or the number of graduates who had won major awards (depending on how you define “major.”) While the prestige of the faculty might be a “soft fact,” as you put it, so was much of the criteria that Kealey used. For example, next to funding, he put the second highest emphasis on “location.” If there is anything more subjective (or less “measurable”) than location, I’d like to know what it is. After all, one person’s ideal location might be another person’s hell. It’s certainly not something you can measure scientifically, and since Kealey himself only visited a small handful of programs I don’t think it’s something he can really even comment on, let alone rank.
All I’m saying is that I think it’s dangerous to look at Kealey’s rankings as any more “scientific” than Delaney’s, and that Delaney ultimately took in a wider (and perhaps more pertinent) range of factors.
Thanks again,
Edward
The article ranks "Ten Top Graduate Programs in Creative Writing." This is not the same as "Top Ten..." or "Ten Top MFA Programs."
Also, the Atlantic itself bills the article as an "assessment" and not a rankings. The article reads more like a piece of journalism than a scientific paper. No methodology is disclosed, but no claims are made, either, for any kind of statistical veracity.
That the author is an alumn of BU doesn't matter at all, unless you're going to hold every other person with an opinion on this subject to the same standard. Tom Kealey has an MFA alma mater that he ranks favorably in his book. All of us who are enrolled in MFA programs now will one day have alma maters, too. Are we all going to recuse ourselves in perpetuity from endorsing the programs that nurtured us? Besides, Delaney's degree is in journalism.
Finally, The Atlantic has a measure of credibility, and it chose to put its name behind Denaley's article. Either you buy his opinions or you don't, but I think we have to be careful not to be specious in our responses.
Best,
Lizzy
In place of "ranks" in the first sentence of my post, immediately above, please read "lists."
Thanks ;-)
By the way (sorry for the consecutive posts, but I will not have a chance to post again in a while) apropos poetry, did anyone notice that this year's Stegner crop boasts two for poetry from U of Houston?
I think it's obvious to everyone that the Atlantic Monthly's scale is garbage. With that thought in mind, Seth, have you ever thought about using your research and the Kealy scale to try and publish an alternative ranking in a notable journal?
L.,
I think, as writers, we're all concerned about language/semantics. I think you have to keep in mind that in the article about the article--written by Jessica Murphy of The Atlantic--it says, "And yet, as immeasurable--or meaningless, as some might argue--a degree in creative writing may be, Delaney found that there was enough consensus of opinion to produce a top-ten list." I think I quoted that line in the blog-post. In his interview with The Atlantic, Delaney himself refers to his work as a "top ten list"...so, I don't think I've done any violence to his intentions there.
If we accept what Delaney says--that he's produced a "top ten list"--I think the word "ranking" becomes appropriate, rather than the euphemistic "assessment," because clearly Delaney is ranking ten schools above all others. While he concedes, rightly, that
for every one of the programs that did end up on the top ten list, there were as many if not more programs that could make an absolutely legitimate case as to why they’re just as good and should be there instead
the bottom line is that he did choose ten over the others, and clearly did so because he felt they could make a more "legitimate case" than the others could.
I've really tried to emphasize that I'm not saying Delaney cooked the books to get BU on there. Not at all. I guess I'm saying this: UMass was #10 in 1997 (U.S. News) and then #2 (!) in the poll of 200 MFA applicants taken on Poets & Writers just this year, and that makes Kealey's (a UMass grad's) ranking of UMass as #13 hardly surprising at all--in fact it represented a downward movement for UMass, and negatively deviated from the LJPW Reader Poll by about as many spots as any school in the country. So, not to be too critical of anyone here, but I think we have to get our facts/info straight...
In contrast, BU got killed in the LJPW Reader Poll, and there was much talk about how it being an M.A. (and not an M.F.A.) is now a major cross it has to bear, because it's not a terminal degree. In that context, even if it was #10 in 1997, it being #10 (or higher!) in the current climate is a little unthinkable to those of us who've been researching M.F.A. programs aggressively. But in fairness, you'll note that I didn't lament UMass not being in The Atlantic top ten, so I'm not exactly singling BU out, either--and UMass, based on the data on this site, has a much better claim to a spot in the top ten than BU does.
Edward,
I agree that Kealey's methods were not scientific and prominently highlighted that fact (in fact probably labored it to death) in the essay I wrote which precedes those rankings on this site. That ranking is entirely unscientific. What I found compelling about Kealey's rankings is how much they do comport with more (but still not entirely) scientific measures, such as the LJPW Reader Poll (which probably rates as like 60% scientific), and the Graduate Placement Rankings (which are pretty darn close to 100% scientific). So, I've tried to on this site close up the holes in Kealey's research. Frankly, if one wanted to know which schools' graduates get the best teaching positions, you'd have to look at the scientific data on this site, and the unreleased surveys from Delaney wouldn't help anyone in that regard. So, I think the Kealey Scale is only "dangerous" if folks don't click on any or all of the links right below the Kealey Scale on this site, which either flesh out what Kealey did and/or confirm it using other methods and measures.
Best,
Seth
Marcus,
You offering? ;-)
Seriously, though, while many folks have legitimate criticisms of the Kealey Scale, I would think that the Poets & Writers poll, admittedly only semi-scientific, would be interesting to at least someone, perhaps an on-line media outlet. And the Graduate Placement Rankings, which can be easily (although apparently, as yet, have only been imperfectly) adjusted for the size of the various schools, are scientific enough I'd think they'd withstand most any scrutiny and, as Edward says, the general subject of "placement" carries with it a lot of innate interest.
That said, as I mentioned somewhere up above, about 100,000 people have visited the site since January, so...to be honest, I think the rankings on this site are making their way out there pretty well on their own(!) :-)
Be well,
S.
Seth,
I’m glad you mentioned the LJPW scale because I personally think it’s a much more accurate ranking than Kealey’s and certainly more reflective of the current MFA scene. I probably wouldn’t rank U. Mass as high as #2 (though I do think it deserves to be in the top 10), but otherwise it seems like a pretty fair list. So, since we seem to be on the same page about Kealey’s rankings being “unscientific,” I guess my only real concern is why the Kealey ranking is featured so prominently on your site (more prominently than any other.) For example, it’s the first ranking listed in your list of rankings (on the right hand side of your blog.) Also, when you do composite rankings, like the composite of the Atlantic and Kealey rankings on this post, you tend to always compare other rankings to Kealey’s, as if his list were some type of standard by which other rankings should be compared. Personally, I think a much more interesting composite ranking would be a composite of the LJPW rankings and the Atlantic rankings, as this would probably yield much more accurate results.
I guess what I’m saying is that given the fact that thousands of prospective MFA students probably come to your site for information, you might want to consider reorganizing the list of rankings so that, say, the LJPW ranking (which is more scientific) is listed first, followed by The Atlantic (also somewhat scientific), and then some of the others, including Kealey’s. I personally think that you’re doing great work here and that a lot of people are benefiting from the information you provide, but I just think that if you’re going to feature or emphasize one particular ranking it shouldn’t be Kealey’s. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be one of the rankings on your site, just that it should come across as “the” ranking.
Thanks again for your responses.
Edward
Great analysis of the Atlantic "assessment" Seth. I find myself in line with your thoughts. My theory on the FSU inclusion is that the MFA program is receiving some positive note from its proximity to the FSU Ph.d. program which has been billing itself (loudly at times) as the best doctoral degree in creative writing, and tends to take out full page ads in the AWP magazine, etc. As for BU, no idea. Is Pinsky still there? Hmmm.
One anecdote I can relate about the research done for this ranking is that when Delaney spoke to our out-going director, he didn’t know that one of our current students (Carter Benton) had won this year’s Atlantic student fiction contest. Also, he seemed to think our program here at Montana was all about Richard Hugo and nature writing. While we do indeed have a giant black & white framed photo of the man, complete with sweat, angry scowl, and an in-hand glass of what I can only imagine is vodka featured prominently in our main workshop room, our current poetry faculty includes Karen Volkman who, I’m pretty sure, doesn’t often pen fly fishing poems. One of the challenges of our new director, Prageeta Sharma, is to help get out the notion that new (even occasionally experimental) writing has taken place in Missoula since 1981. Interesting how once a program gets a reputation for certain thing it can linger for decades. Be on the lookout for a fairly unprecedented Montana rebranding over the coming year with ads in AWP, Poets & Writers, etc. (Come to think of it—I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ad for Montana in AWP).
I'm not an Atlantic subscriber, so can't see... but what are the top 5 Ph.D. programs listed in the article? Anyone wanna share?
Seth,
At best you're talking about fuzzy math. So, while information may be available, it hardly seems accurate to speak about "facts" in this debate (at least until someone gets serious about methodology). For example, I'm not inclined to see the LJPW poll as a reliable measure of anything other than "where is the herd going?"
On the other hand, I admit that while I'm often curious about "top ten lists," rankings and such, I remain baffled about the intensity with which you and others seem to need to set this down definitively, "in stone," as it were. That's not an attack; it's more like a disclaimer: In the end, I just don't believe that the "top" schools are right for everyone; nor do I think that affiliation with them guarantees anything.
You're obviously an intelligent guy who's passionate about his beliefs. And I do applaud that and it's why I remain interested in what you have to say here. But after a point I think I see that belaboring these things tends to sneak over into snark territory a bit; or if not that, exactly, I think I see how bits of information that (to me) appear biased or inconclusive start to be touted as "fact."
Stay with me.
It does seem--this could be way off base, but my impressions are all I have to go on--that you show a certain bias when you rebutt my assertion (that The Atlantic is billing this as a "ten top" "assessment" and not a "top ten" "rankings") with your own "Well Denaley *also* says "top ten" in the text, and that's what I'm going forward with." You then proceed to bring us back to your own work, as if it HAD to be a matter of choosing one over the other--you over Delaney--when your lists, Kealey's and Delaney's really differ only slightly (as in the case of two "surprise" schools that don't belong in a top ten list, according to some of the other experts here ;o). The Atlantic's list is going to be influential, and as most of us have agreed, it's more or less "right on."
In the interest of disclosure, by the way, I should say that I am a first-year student in the MFA program at FSU. I won't try to defend Delaney's inclusion of FSU on the list; I, too was surprised--if pleasantly so--just as I am surprised at the level of resistance this unorthodox endorsement has met with in some parts.
In the end, I do think that Delany's choice of BU shows, if anything, a little "star-struckedness." He gushed about Ha Jin a little too disingenuously for my taste. Personally, I find Jin a bit overrated as a writer. Same with Jhumpa Lahiri. But those are just my personal preferences--they're both talented people, no question about it, and I think BU gains from having them around. Plus I have to think that when a program continues to graduate writer after writer that makes waves in the publishing/lit world, then maybe the program knows a thing or two about teaching something key about writing. I also happen to think that Derek Walcott (yes, I'm aware of the controversy) is a genius far above most other living writers, so, yeah, I'm inclined to see BU's program as attractive, even with the problems.
Anyway, I do respect the energy you bring to your work here and I *totally* (and I mean, like, totally, dude! (you have to understand that since I came back to school I've heard more college-speak in a month than I had the last seventeen years)) appreciate reading your views.
Peace.
Lizzy
Lizzy,
I think those are fair questions/observations, and it probably would be too long a discussion for me to outline the aspects of my personality, and the particularities of my life experience, that make it so important for me to "make sense out of systems"--in this case, the MFA system (its place in the culture, the relation of one program to another, the reasons why we do or don't attend, how the degree is received in the field, and so on). It's a quirk, I know, and I'm not stupid--I know how my interests play generally in the artistic "community." Many find these sorts of conversations (to use just a few adjectives) crass, garish, desperate, superficial, whiny, pathetic, hyper-ambitious, loathesome, what have you. And I can honestly say that I'd apply those same adjectives myself if I thought, in my own mind, that the only purpose of these conversations was to "rank" people and places and degrees and put everyone in a nice little box. But to me--and perhaps only to me--that isn't what this is about, and I'll admit that I indulge myself on occasion and tell myself that this isn't what it's about for the tens of thousands of people who've come here over the past few months. For myself, I can vividly recall starting the MFA application process a little less than a year ago and feeling overwhelmed by the lack of information out there--"hard," "soft," it didn't matter--about MFAs. The attitude seemed to be, we're artists, we don't need to dwell overmuch on "data" or "systems" or "institutional cultures" (I'm an attorney as well as an artist, so I don't necessarily have that luxury), we can just follow our instincts about which school "feels right" to us and everything will be fine. I don't mean to say that everyone was saying or thinking that, just that that was the "atmosphere" that I sensed surrounding the MFA meme. And I asked myself, why don't we have more information? And why does it terrify me, personally, that I don't have more information? I didn't know if my chances of acceptance to this school or that one were, all things being equal, 50% or 0.5%. And it matters; more than once, in submitting my poetry to journals, I'd find out that a journal I'd been submitting to for years which claimed to have a 5% acceptance rate really had a .05% acceptance rate, and that most of that was solicited. So you feel sheepish and say, Jesus, that was sort of a waste of my time, and I don't like being bamboozled that way. How can I know how to think about what I'm doing if I don't have any good information...? I'll end up spinning my wheels and getting nowhere. So one day I said to myself, "we should have more information about MFAs. It should be possible to make a list of the things we want to know about the programs, and to then go out and get that information and compare one school to the other in various measures so that we can all make better decisions." And the point wasn't that "raw" information alone was enough--I've been saying until I'm blue in the face that there are countless intangibles which play into every important decision, and yes, even instinct is going to play a major role. But I at least felt we should know more than we did at the time. I mean, the MFA "field" must have been, at the time, the only one in which no one even cared to know the class sizes or acceptance rates of the schools they were applying to.
And we--and I do mean we--have made great strides. There's simply no comparison between the sort of conversations people are having about MFAs now and the conversations they were having 18 months ago, and I'd like to think this site has been a small part of that. I'd like to believe that never again, or rarely again, will some straight-from-college bright-eyed kid apply to only 3 MFAs, thinking the odds are in his favor he'll get in. These days--now that people know the top schools accept less than 10% of applicants, making MFAs statistically as hard to get into, or harder, than medical schools--I see people saying, "I'm going to apply to 10 to 15 schools, so I actually have options..." Likewise, once people began talking about the sort of financial aid packages which were out there, people--and again, we're talking mostly about young people--were in a better position to know what they had a right to expect, and what sort of offer simply wasn't going to keep pace with the "market" of FA offers out there. I think people had a right to know that. I think no one should be told by any school, "you should feel lucky we admitted you, so go talk to the Stafford people," when they could easily have applied and gotten into several other programs of similar reputation and student satisfaction levels and gotten a free ride. Information isn't just "power" (as the old saying goes); information gives one the basic tools needed to insist upon one's (as we say in the criminal justice system) "dignity rights." It used to be that MFA administrators had all the information--even basic data, like applicant-pool numbers--and now the little guy (the applicant) is starting to catch up. As a public defender, I like that. I like it generally, and I also like it personally: it makes me feel empowered and it helps me to understand better what's going on in my own life. I don't expect, or ask, others to understand why it is that I think in terms of "systems," and why having more information about the systems I operate in means so much to me and so helps to put me at ease. But apparently others get some sort of benefit from all this, too.
So--it really doesn't matter to me that anything be "definitive." Frankly, I think once information gets out there, consensuses start to get built one way or another, it's a natural process. So do I think that now, as opposed to 18 months ago, there's a gradually hardening (but in a healthy and still-malleable way) "consensus" over what the top twenty-five schools are, and which financial aid packages are generous and which aren't, and which schools should be considered "large" and which "small," and which schools are the most popular among those most likely to have educated themselves on the topic (what you call "the herd" and what I call "the only highly-educated class of consumers in the field in question"). Yes, I think a consensus is forming or has formed, and I fundamentally believe that consensus helps people to make better decisions for their own lives, even if no single chart or ranking or consensus or essay will or should ever hold significant sway in anyone's heart, nor should anyone base their personal decisions on "what everyone else is saying." That said, if you find people with similar interests and values, their opinions can be of value to you, and if you know which factors are important to your own decision-making process and you know where to get information (or, some semblance of "expert"/well-researched analysis), you're going to be able to--on your own--make the best possible decision for you.
Be well,
Seth
Seth,
I hear you on those frustrations about the whole atmosphere surrounding this MFA thing. I had identical thoughts, wondering what my chances were and just feeling like I had *no* idea at all. It wasn't a fun time, and I can remember thinking "Fuck you, MFA"--being mad at the whole concept of the thing--as if! But it seems to be working out more or less OK in its wacky MFA way. So far, at least...
Well, you be well, too. I'm going to try to get a few winks before I have to go to class :o)
~L.
Raymond Carver was not a novelist.
Just wanted to clear up a slight misstatement regarding this:
"I must say, I have to be a little skeptical of the strenuousness of the research done by The Atlantic when Irvine, Michigan, and Texas are all referenced as having "500 applications" for "5 or 6" spots; in fact, as with the rest of the analysis done by The Atlantic, those numbers wrongly emphasize the fiction programs at those three schools: in reality, the total applicant pool numbers supplied for those schools are approximately correct, but each of those schools accepts "5 or 6" students per genre, making the acceptance rates for all three about twice (or more: don't forget non-fiction applicants) what you'd otherwise expect based upon reading the article(s)."
I graduated from Michigan's program in 2006. Michigan generally accepts about 12 fiction students and 12 poetry students each year, not "5 or 6." Also, we were told that the number of applicants for 2005 was over 700 and that it's gone up since then. So the acceptance rates implied in the article *are* off, though not quite as the original post suggested.
I'd just like contribute a little info about the BU program. First, although it is an MA rather than an MFA, it is, in fact, a terminal degree. Students take the same number of credits/classes as most 2-year MFA progs (4 workshops and 4 lit courses, with a language requirement) in one year, and have been hired for teaching positions requiring terminal degrees. Second, I have it on good authority that they plan to convert to a 2 year MFA format, pending university approval. The reason that was given for this was that they believe they lose some prospective students who are confused/concerned about the MA degree not being equal to an MFA. It's a shame, in some respects, as the one-year BU experience (I'm a fiction grad) is a real pressure-cooker and limit-tester. Not the most fun year of my life, but certainly the most educational and self-revelatory. Funding needs improvement, but the faculty is top-notch (Pinsky, Walcott, and Roseanna Warren for poetry and Ha Jin and an underrated Leslie Epstein for fiction), as were the students in my class. I'm not interested in getting caught up in ranking something so subjective as the 'best' MFA experiences, but I can't say I'm surprised to hear that BU was again cited as an excellent program.
Didn't read every above comment, so not sure if somebody already made this point. But. Regardless. This is way late and way out of date now, anyway, but here goes.
The Atlantic list was not a "Top Ten" by any means. It was, instead a "Ten Top", which while at first glance not seeming to be a huge difference in fact is. This list does not claim to be choosing THE top 10 programs, but rather listing 10 OF the top programs.
When that tidbit is taken into consideration, the list I think makes a lot more sense.
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