For the next two months we’ll be asking some of our first year contributors to talk about the post application period and how they dealt with it last year.
What did you do to get through the post application period?
It sounds cheesy but I told myself that I would get into the school I was meant to attend. I gave myself ample time to get my writing samples, SOP and letters of recommendation in before my deadlines so I felt confident I would get into at least one of the three schools I applied to on the first try. In the interim, I kept up with MFA Draft on Facebook for the community aspect and looked at Grad Café’s previous application year to estimate when acceptance letters would come out. This helped me resist checking my email twenty times a day (okay, maybe I still did that).
What’s the best piece of advice you received about applying?
Can I give two? Trust your gut instinct and don’t go into substantial debt for an MFA. I did trust my gut and it paid off. I got into my first pick school and I got a GA position that provides a tuition waiver and stipend. Applying without funding was a risky move for me since GA positions are hard to come so I really lucked out.
Biggest high? Biggest low?
Biggest high was getting into two of the three schools I applied to. I didn’t have any big lows but there was an administrative glitch at my first pick school. Parts of my application didn’t completely upload so I had to resubmit my application after the deadline. When I realized what happened I immediately called the school. They could see that I submitted before the deadline but they couldn’t access the files so I wasn’t penalized. I wouldn’t have caught this error if I hadn’t checked on my application after I sent it in.
What would you do differently if you could apply all over again?
I honestly don’t think I would have changed a thing. I got into two schools with two solid writing samples and I felt that my SOP represented me well.
