"...those two to three years is your time to grow as much as you can, so make sure you can identify what’s important to synthesize during your time there."
- dimitrireyespoet.com
Applying to an MFA program is a nerve-wracking and overwhelming experience. With over 200 MFA programs, one can quickly feel intimidated by the application process. If you read through this blog and still feel a bit unsure, reach out to me on my contact page for additional advice and services.
1) Know the Poet in the Mirror
You need to know your work and how to describe yourself as a writer. MFA program or not, the way to move around within the literary community is by having a definitive identity. Knowing your personal identifiers places yourself in certain spaces effortlessly and helps you find your tribe indefinitely. Articulating an identity can be among the hardest and most uncomfortable situations for anyone; luckily, all writers have an identity as long as they write often.
If you are still asking yourself “HOWWWWW?!?” just look for what themes jump out at you. Are you talking more about the urban landscape? Are you talking more about imagery? Are you talking more about your race, your creed, your ethnicity, your religion? All of those things count in making you your own poet. If you need help analyzing your own work, please be sure to check out 5 Ways to Analyze a Poem.
If you are applying to a program and still questioning your identity, don’t worry.
To be honest, it was hard to describe my poetic identity before my MFA and many would argue that’s a good reason people seek an MFA to begin with. Regardless, you should still know which poems seem to be the strongest, as well as what fits to a theme. Consider what fits well together and organize those poems.
You should also print them out or rewrite them all on separate pages. Spread them out on the floor and look at them. Many writers do this to survey an entire collection.
This was example when I was putting my thesis together for grad school. I taped all of my “poems that fit” to the wall. Then I edited each poem and shuffled the order of appearance until it created an acceptable dialogue.
2) Search for the Appropriate Faculty
As another technique with applying to programs, many people send countless applications to plenty of universities with MFA programs in their area. If your lifestyle doesn’t permit you to leave (as mine did) this works, but if you have the means to move to a different state, I’d suggest you apply to programs that are far as well. Doing so expands your options, especially if there aren’t many programs in your state/ province, but it simultaneously allows you to be more choosey in your selection process.
You should be choosing a program where the professors are able to nurture your particular poetic identity. It’s a good idea to research the core faculty at each university in order to see if they’d compliment your work well. For example, if you are going to a university where two professors are about the African American/ African diasporic experience and there’s three other Caucasian professors that represent Appalachia and you’re a Vietnamese-American writer trying to get a position on the Asian American experience, that might not be the college for you.
This is not to say that you CAN’T learn from individuals that write from different perspectives, we need that too, but there should be some sort of focus when listening to faculty from the different perspectives. Remember: those two to three years is your time to grow as much as you can, so make sure you can identify what’s important to synthesize during your time there. Feel free to write me if extra advice is needed.
Try to look for professors that are going to help mold you into a better writer.
3) Think About the Location
College = Money = Debt
I’m not a math blog but this algorithm is pretty simple.
You need to think about the location, the tuition, and the college culture of the university you’re going to. You also have to determine which is more important as well. Is it important to get out of debt as quickly as possible?
If money is an issue, you are going to need to look into universities with partial or full funding. Be mindful that these programs receive the most applications and are therefore more competitive since any writer would love to write for a few years without needing to work.
If you want to stay close to home, consider looking up the programs in your area and seeing which one fits the best for you. Note, that if there aren’t many programs in your state you may have to look outside your area in neighboring locations.
Lastly, you have to think of the culture of the university which many MFA applicants don’t think enough about. Sure, Pratt, NYU, and Columbia are great names on a bio but there’s a give-and-take in regards to the experience. Now this example (as many things on this blog) is biased, as I’m only sharing with you my own experiences— both in what I’ve physically done and what I’ve been told from other writers.
So let’s say you get accepted to NYU or Columbia. There’s going to be about 60 other people that got accepted into that program that year, which means the classes are going to have more students than other programs. If you’re looking to get a certain professor you might not get them for the two to three years that you’re there. The MFA program I attended at Rutgers-Newark accepted only 8 poets internationally each year. Because of this, it was highly competitive to get in, but we got individualized teaching and mentorship from the faculty.
4) Get a Professional to Review Your Material
This is very important and will give you an edge over others! I’ve helped other students get into graduate programs (and one recently got accepted to an MFA program. YAY!) and it really matters if you have an individual who is familiar with the application process and has the skill set to look it over.
If a professor looks over it, they’ve gotten their Masters, maybe even their PhD. They’ve been up to bat before, they’ve done an application, and they’ve looked over countless others. In addition to that, they’re going to know certain keywords and other items that you should put into the application to get it accepted.
For example, a dear poetry friend and mentor of mine, Michael Vancalbergh, was my Comics & Graphic Novels teacher. I once told him in an assignment that I was a budding poet and he was like, “No no no no no. You have to apply to an MFA program.” So we started going over my poetry, my personal statement, and my resume. With only three months leading up to the deadline for the application he was tearing my stuff to bits. I also had two other professors, Barbara Foley and Frances Bartkowski, doing the same thing. Vancalbergh was a published writer whose written poetry and poetry reviews while Foley and Bartkowski had either written books of theory, fiction, or both while being full-time faculty at the university.
So the more heads on your application, the better. It’ll be easier for others to help you polish your application.
5) Put Together a Great Portfolio
You will need a collection of your work when applying to an MFA program. This obviously is the most telling portion of your application because this determines many things like if you will be able to grow with the program, if the faculty would be able to work with you, and if you have the overall potential to become a better writer by the time you graduate.
There are other ways that you can organize your portfolio but this isn’t a simple manuscript submission. You need to make sure you’re putting your best work in the pile. Organize it in a way where you’re putting your best poem first, followed by your next best poem, and so on. You have to catch the attention of these judges that are reading the portfolios and if they see that your first couple of poems are strong, they’ll be able to see potential when reading the rest of your work.
6) Have a Solid Personal Statement
Judges will look at this soon after they’ve looked at your work. Although your portfolio is vital, your personal statement is just as important. This is your chance to tell them who you are as a person and as a writer. This is the moment that the poet behind the poem and the person behind the poet gets to explain who they really are. Depending on the school you are applying to, the questions would be along the lines of, “why do you want to get your MFA?” and, “what are you going to do after you get your MFA?”
Make sure it’s knockout and that you’ve had individuals in academia look through it to suggest changes. The personal statement, after your portfolio, could be the deciding factor of an acceptance or rejection.
7) Have Great Recommendations
I like to think that the recommendation letters are equivalent to an extra Draw 4 in Uno. If you’re application is neck and neck with one or several individuals— meaning you and those others have very similar applications— the strength of your recommendation letter can put you over others,
Make sure they’re coming from the most highly decorated people you know (particularly in poetry, secondarily in academia) and make sure that they can talk very nicely about you.
BE AWARE, that references WILL BE HONEST in their perceptions of you. This is another one of those countless reasons it’s good to be a nice, upstanding person!
Also, allow them time to write the recommendation. No one likes to write a letter on short notice and this can cause your reference to be haphazard or generic. If the request is too short notice, they may deny writing it altogether!
8) Have an MFA Geared Resume
It’s great if you have been a nurse in the Peace Corps or a volunteer firefighter. Those things make you quite interesting. Even if you were a cashier or an administrative assistant, thats cool, too! The reviewers just want to know what you’ve done up until this point.
What many fail to realize about the MFA application is that what the reviewers really look for are literary- based highlights. Have you volunteered or participated at open mics, attended any workshops, published any work, or have done anything else in the literary space? This will make the institution feel as if you are serious about your writing career and you’re ready to be in an MFA program.
So are you ready to be in a MFA program?
Now this is where your research and decision making begins. Trust the process, this shouldn’t be something that takes a day to figure out.
Click on the links throughout this article and check Poets and Writers for more MFA information.
Watch my MFA playlist on YouTube and search creative writing resumes in your search engine.
If you still feel as though you need additional help after reading my blog and watching the video below, contact me for a consultation or edits and you’ll be sure to get some extra insight on how to make that application shine.
If you need to get on a writing routine, for just $7.99, you can take part in my online writing community of poets. Click on the picture to learn more.
