Stoopid NYC MFA Students
Seth Abramson and Sona Charaipotra
I always love a good literary throw down because academics will never concede they’re in any way wrong, so it usually ends in a shootout. Oh wait, I’m confusing it with a gang war. It actually ends with one person having a strop (British slang for behaving like a child) and storming off. It’s even funnier online because there’s nowhere to go. It is, in one very fitting word, “awesome.” This time it involved the lawyer, poet, Ph.D. student, and blogger Seth Abramson, and Sona Charaipotra, a hot mama, New School Young Adult MFA student, TeenWritersBloc blogger, oh, and my wife =) It’s exactly like the feud between the East Coast and West Coast rappers. Sona’s like Tupac and Seth is like the Notorious B.I.G. Don’t let his Harry Potter outfit fool you. That is a Harry Potter outfit, right? Anyway, Seth wrote an article in the Huffington Post in which he does not call NYC MFA students idiots, and Sona wrote a blog on TeenWritersBloc.com titled “NYC Students: We’re not all idiots” See. Just like gangstaz.
James Frey and his best friend, Oprah Winfrey
Seth Abramson’s article, “James Frey and the Creative Writing Master of Fine Arts” has very little to do with either. He starts off discussing the unethical and exploitative nature of James Frey’s publishing company (check out my blog about it here), and then the article abruptly stops being about Frey and springboards into what he writes about on his blog: the perils of being in a high priced MFA program that is not fully funded. It reminds me of those reefer madness posters from the 60s.
Seth Abramson went to one of the top notch creative writing schools in the country (funded), the Writers Workshop at Iowa, and before that Dartmouth and Harvard Law School (what was wrong with Queens College? Oh wait, that’s right. The law degree is not a ” largely-unmarketable art-school degree” so the debt is not crippling) and now he is in a Ph.D. program in Wisconsin. So, yes, I do think he’s a little unsure of himself, or perhaps he was unsure of the career trajectory of a poet with an MFA. I can’t imagine why. He is actually a really good poet, but is more well known for his ranking system, which he began before he even started the program. Why anyone even remotely serious about writing would want to take on a project involving ranking MFA programs by going through tedious research is beyond me. And yet here we are.
Sona’s blog post was titled, “NYC Students: We’re not all idiots” which he had quite a strop about. His main objection was that he never used the word, “idiot” and claims he never even implied it. In his article on the Huffington Post, he poses a question as if he was searching for the answer and then leaves the reader hanging. We have no idea what he’s getting at when he asks if there is any merit in an unfunded MFA degree which put its graduates into, not just debt, but “crippling debt , for a largely unmarketable art school degree.” But he is in the right in his comment to Sona’s blog post. He never used the words “a throwaway degree” and certainly didn’t use the word “idiot” or imply idiocy in the slightest.
If he were any more subtle, he would be like Sona when she doesn’t like the few bits of clothes I still own. “So, you’re wearing that black shirt and those brown pants then are you?” she will say, placing special emphasis on the colours I’ve picked out. Then she will make no movement towards getting up, leaving me to no longer look at my checkered black shirt and plaid brown pants with a feeling of pride. Oh, the shame of it all!
Sona’s argument was essentially “you get what you pay for byaatch.” She wrote that although her program at the New School in Young Adult Fiction (one of very few such programs in the United States incidentally) wasn’t fully funded, she felt it was worth it because of the high caliber of the faculty, access to all sorts of literary events taking place in the City, the quality of the classes, and the close knit class dynamic.
His counter-argument was that “Most MFA students — in NYC and elsewhere — aren’t really ready yet to ‘talk shop’ because, at bottom, the quality of work isn’t there yet. That’s one reason people seek the time and space an MFA provides.” The primary focus of any MFA program should obviously be writing and workshopping, but I think students should be exposed to the publishing world as well. And the instructors in Sona’s MFA program at the New School are not just people who’ve sold a book here and there; they are actively involved in the literary scene and the publishing scene. So they are a tremendous source of information, not only in craft, but on the business side. And perhaps some of the students aren’t ready for that information, but it will get them thinking about it so they will be better prepared when they get to that level.
And in Sona’s program, there are more than a few students who are certainly at that level. And while I do like the fact that he took the trouble to rank these programs according to funding, it is really silly to judge a program solely on those criteria. And Abramson also said that living in the City was overrated and that “we live in the Digital Age. New York City is as far removed from the cultural importance it boasted in its heyday.” So basically, people can get access to all of those things via the internet, which I think is a good point. And that is one of the reasons I don’t feel the need to leave my house for writers’ groups, to meet people, or attend any live readings of poets or writers. I can just send out my stories via email, Facebook people, or go to a writer’s website to see youtube videos of their readings. It’s almost exactly the same thing.
I went to a small MFA program at California State University in Fresno, and liked my program because it was economical and I got mainly what I wanted out of it. I got the chance to really focus and sharpen my writing with instructors whose writing I liked, and not have a huge debt when I came out of it. But I never had any kind of bonding with my classmates because it wasn’t that kind of program. And I’m not that sort of bloke. This may be part of the reason I’ve been taking my sweet ole time to write my short stories and novel. There was no pressure outside of class to write (aside from the thesis, which I won an award for thank you very much). There was no sense of urgency. Sona and some of her New School classmates have even started an extra workshop where they give each other feedback and meet up as though it were a class. That is something that would never have happened in my program.
Salman Rushdie and Tishani Doshi
While I don’t regret not having learned anything about publishing, it would have been nice. It also would have been nice to have been able to hop on a train and meet literary figures to hear them talk about how they write. This past summer, for example, I got to bike across the Brooklyn Bridge for the Brooklyn Literary Festival and listen to Salman Rushdie talk about the craft of fiction. And the internet would not work so well in this case (read blog on ten authors with no web presence). He doesn’t have a website, Facebook, or a Twitter account!
Great post! I had been struggling to get my thoughts together to respond to Seth’s post on Teen Writers Bloc. But you nailed it! I need not even attempt. Here’s a little known secret: I got accepted into one of those prestigious, fully-funded MFA programs, and turned it down! Oh my! To pay to go to The New School. I guess Seth would say that was a stupid move and that I am not very bright, turning down one of those programs. But that fully-funded program can’t help me. I can’t be in the middle of nowhere America, trying to network with authors I admire, editors I want to work with, and agents I’d like to represent my work via online websites and blogs. I needed to go to a program that focused on children’s/teen writing and that was in NYC. I’ve been in workshops with other MFA-ers who write adult fiction and they can’t help me because they don’t read within my genre and don’t know my market. Even the professors leading those workshops didn’t know what to do with my work. But it was strong enough to get me a spot in one of those coveted fully-funded programs. More reason for me to go to a program with like-minded individuals who love teen lit and children’s books. I couldn’t be happier at The New School and I bet I’ll have my high-priced MFA paid off by the first year after I graduate. I guess Seth doesn’t realize how much money children’s and teen authors really make. Last week, I watched the agent I intern for get a two-book, six-figure deal for a New School Writing for Children grad from last year. He’s got three New School Writing for Children grads on his client list. I’m in good company.
Thanks for the first official comment on this post, Dhonielle! And that too with an avatar. Nice work. I think the whole point of an MFA is really to sharpen your writing and to help you get published. It’s not therapy. There are creative writing MFAs in non-fiction for that =) People work in very different ways, which is why I don’t really like the idea of a rating system that acts as a judge for entire programs, that gives you the illusion of facts to support a claim that definitively university X has a better creative writing program than university Y. And I agree that for you lot, no matter how great a fiction program is, if the instructors and classmates aren’t interested or well versed in the genre, they really can’t be much help at all. I’ve had that experience in workshops before and it’s a waste of time. I can’t imagine having that feeling for two years or more! But yeh, I’m sure Seth thinks you’re a bit of a plonker for not accepting the funded MFA haha. But you can always take the LSAT. Then it’s okay if it’s not funded because it’s a proper degree. It’s not a silly degree in something frivolous like writing, painting, knitting, or smoothie making =)
Well written! As an MFA applicant, I have noticed not only the anti-NY tone of Seth’s writing, but the total lack of attention paid to nonfiction MFAs. I am applying to the New School, as well as that “other” expensive MFA in NYC, and Hunter – whose in-state tuition is quite cheap, but that point was ignored when I commented on the MFA Blog. Dhonielle made an excellent point – location, location, location – it’s hard to network and get in the thick of things when you’re in the Midwest…anyway, it’s great to see other points of view!
Hi Jaime,
There are quite a lot of people who feel that living in NYC is all hype and not worth the expense. And one of my biggest problems with a criteria of assessment for creative writing programs is that you can’t use hard facts to support any clear cut hypothesis. And to add to Dhonielle’s point about the caliber of the faculty and networking ability, there is also the caliber of the students. The New School is expensive, but also very stringent on the quality of the writing expected, so even if a stray below-par writer did manage to get through, they would soon be weeded out. Most of the students in the program have publishing as a goal and I can’t say that about my program in Fresno, or many of the programs that aren’t in the heart of a bustling city bubbling with literary events that there is no valid excuse not to go to. “It’s such a long drive,” “My car broke down,” or “traffic is too horrendous,” aren’t plausible options here. Lots of luck on your MFA application. And remember that the only real criteria to look at is whether you like/admire the work of your potential instructors. Then comes everything else.
Jaime, nonfiction MFA applicants make up approximately 18% of the total MFA applicant pool, and 15% of the readership of The MFA Blog, the major online forum for applicants. The sad fact is that the current volunteer corps of MFA data collectors currently numbers one person: me. FWIW, I spend hundreds of hours annually doing pro bono research and consulting with MFA applicants, so I probably could have been forgiven (you’d think) for not attending quite as much to a genre that appeals to 15% to 18% of the applicant cohort. Instead, I created the first comprehensive ranking of nonfiction MFA programs in the country — and the first comprehensive list of which schools even offer the degree — and cataloged reams of data about these programs (e.g., financial aid data). And you’re here complaining (it seems) that you’ve been neglected. Does that sound ungrateful to you? If you or someone else would like to pay me (or someone else) to do research about your genre, I’ll (or they’ll) do it, I’m sure — in the meantime, I earn below the poverty line working as a TA and hope you’ll forgive me for not giving you all the research you demand.
Navdeep, misquoting me isn’t any way to win an argument. If you’ve read anything — literally anything — I’ve written about MFA programs, you know that I don’t believe rankings can conclusively determine whether any one program is better than any other. The rankings have never — ever — claimed to serve that function. Nor can they (or do they wish to) measure anyone’s subjective experience. If you like your MFA program, all’s well — the rankings don’t get offended, as they’re intended exclusively for prospective applicants anyway, not as a way for current students to regret or laud their own life decisions. But one thing the rankings do is something you refuse to acknowledge: they can measure certain things. Including selectivity, which is directly related to cohort quality. And the cohort quality of The New School and Columbia is (relative to their historical reputation) exceedingly low. The best MFA students attend fully-funded programs in the Midwest and South; as we’ve seen in this thread and elsewhere, sometimes those who think they have nothing to learn or benefit from at an MFA other than how to “network” end up in NYC. And when they get there and realize they’re no better situated than writers at Arkansas and Alabama and Wisconsin who a) visit with agents when they come through town on their regular visits (as they do), or simply b) mailed their mss. to agents and then got signed because they were more talented than their peers at less-selective programs in NYC — the amazing thing is that agents still sign based on talent, not cocktail parties MFA students aren’t invited to anyway — they start to lose the odious arrogance on display here from people who live in or fetishize NYC.
Bottom line: The results speak for themselves. Graduates from fully-funded programs have less debt, are more satisfied with their experiences on average, publish more, place better in fellowships, earn more “prestigious” degrees rankings-wise, and — sorry to say — almost to a one seem glad to have done their MFA anywhere but NYC. Like I always tell young poets and writers, there’s plenty of time to move to NYC and be penniless and provincial later on. In the meantime, you can (say) attend readings organized by any one of the seven poetry reading series in Madison alone, which routinely draw more folks than NYC readings (60-90 people).
If I’m a little peeved here, it’s because I’ve been misquoted in the interest of making hay about things I didn’t say, and (oddly) you’re ignoring equally provocative things I _did_ say — solely because the latter don’t fit the “official” NYC MFA narrative. And if I’m a little insistent on all these points, it’s because I want to help young writers avoid misinformation and make ever better and better strategic decisions about applying to MFA programs. Those 21 year-olds who think $100,000+ in debt is no biggie should come back to me — as their predecessors at unfunded programs often do via e-mail — when they’re 34 and saddled with debt they’ll never be able to pay back. I’m glad some young folk are optimistic about paying through the teeth for a degree that doesn’t pay for itself (and it has absolutely nothing — nothing — to do with whether the MFA is a “proper” degree, which it damn well is), but a little less blinkered a perspective might have these same individuals considering that some of us have already been down that road before them and know what’s coming.
That us folks in the Midwest and South are happy as s**t to be in the college towns we’re in, including those of us (like me) who moved from big cities on the East Coast to be here, and think y’all in NYC are fooling yourselves to pretend otherwise, is something we needn’t share with you all but _do_ share in order to be generous. I wouldn’t live in NYC over Madison for anything in the world, and no one I know who lives here feels otherwise. Frankly anyone who goes to an MFA largely or even somewhat to “network” I feel sorry for — they’re going to waste a lot of people’s time, and their own.
S.
Seth,
Don’t be a hater. Read some Punjabi poetry by Bulleh Shah and drink some chamomile tea. It’s very soothing. Not that you need it. You’re fine, mate. Just fine. Me and you should totally go have the best New York pizza and the best beer at this place called the “Pizza Bar,” on 23rd street in NYC, and then read some deep poetry. I have a new one I’ve been working on entitled, “Ain’t no pizza like an Arkansas pizza, cuz an Arkansas pizza nevaaa quits.”
I’ll send you an advance copy of the book so you can rank it. I mean read it. And don’t worry about being disappointed by the poem, pizza, or the beer. I’ve ranked all three and have statistics of my own that I can reference at will.
I never misquoted you. Every single line that I’ve attributed to you in my post was written by you. What you have a problem with is my analysis, which I’m terribly sorry about. I will try to refrain from analyzing things on my blog.
And I have read plenty of articles by you, none of which I found remotely “provocative,” and I find it comical that your argument really is that “I don’t believe rankings can conclusively determine whether any one program is better than any other. The rankings have never—ever—claimed to serve that function.” I hope I didn’t misquote you again.
An article written by you in October/November 2010: The MFA Revolution: Ranking the Nation’s Best Programs. “In our second annual ranking of the top fifty MFA programs, contributor Seth Abramson measures sixteen distinct program features for the 148 full-residency programs in the United States, Canada, and New Zealand, and eight features for each of the 46 low-residency programs around the world.”
(http://www.pw.org/content/the_mfa_revolution_ranking_the_nation039s_best_programs)
Perhaps I glossed over it, but I didn’t read the words “ranked based on funding” anywhere in the title or the description. All I read was “BEST”
You ranked University of Arizona’s “MFA in Nonfiction Ranked Second Overall,” in March 3, 2009. What happened to the word “funding?” I thought your rankings “never. EVER.” Ranked one program as “better.” Perhaps I misquoted you again. None of these articles use the word “better,” just “best.”
I think it is very convenient that your “research” is “intended exclusively for prospective applicants” because anyone who is even slightly in the know can see the holes in your ranking and how deceptive it is. Quite honestly, I would never pay for a New York MFA. But I do see the merit in it, which you seem hell-bent upon not seeing. How is that MFA consulting firm going by the way? I’m not making any links between the two whatsoever. Just thought I’d ask to make conversation. We can talk more about it at the Pizza Bar.
And who cares about selectivity? Because a university’s MFA program rejects x percentage of its applicants, that makes the MFA program shoot up in rank? Great criterion mate.
“The best MFA students attend fully-funded programs in the Midwest and South.” I didn’t misquote you AGAIN did I? Where do the “best MFA students” go again, Seth? The Midwest. Print it on a t-shirt. I’ll buy it.
Your argument is beyond ridiculous and again, on a completely unrelated topic, I hope your MFA consulting firm is doing well. I don’t know what statistics you’ve pulled out of your bottom in support of the statement that MFA students apparently come to NYC solely because of the opportunity to network, but I can offer you plenty of statistics out of my bottom as well. I didn’t go to New York for my MFA because I didn’t want to be saddled with debt, and being immersed in writing wasn’t really on my list of priorities. But I’m not knocking it for people for whom this is important.
Networking doesn’t consist solely of agents showing up to the convocation with a contract in hand. And obviously, if the writing is good, you should be able to get an agent without ever having to set foot in New York. Networking also consists of knowing what is going on in the publishing world, from understanding the basics of the process, to the latest trends. And that is something that many MFA programs don’t provide.
The University of Iowa is a great school, but it is not everyone’s cup of tea, just like the New School is obviously not yours. University of Iowa would be completely useless for students who have an interest in Young Adult fiction, for example. And I don’t think you can make a comparison between the two or say any one of them is “better” than the other. They are different.
You could have easily gone to a local college for law school, and for your MFA; University of Iowa is still expensive when you add in living expenses. You went to Harvard Law School for a reason, and I’m pretty sure that reason didn’t involve doing pro-bono work and your other saintly duties geared towards helping “young writers avoid misinformation.” Pardon me while I shed a tear. Sniff. Sniff.
Your bottom line is again completely unsubstantiated, unless you have some kind of special machine to measure happiness and satisfaction.
By the way, your response to Jaime is fantastic. And I am equally furious with her. I’ll have words with her and make her publicly apologize for accusing you of doing a half-ass job with your ratings and having a chip on your shoulder about NYC MFAs, which you clearly don’t.
Concentrate on your poetry, mate. And remember to drink that chamomile tea.
Mate,
Get thee to a doctoral program! Your research skills are enough to make any dissertator blush. Apparently they involve quoting the titles of articles (titles often chosen by magazine editors, not journalists) and attributing sentiments to me that were published on various universities’ _intranet_ sites by university administrators I don’t know and have never heard of.
What’s really grand about magazine articles is that sometimes people _read them_. Here’s what my 2009 article (whose title you so admirably quoted) said:
“Irrespective of the approach taken by USNWR, the evils of educational rankings are indeed legion and do urge caution on the part of any prospective analyst of MFA programs. At base it is impossible to quantify or predict the experience any one MFA candidate will have at any one program. By and large, students find that their experiences are circumscribed by entirely unforeseeable circumstances: They befriend a fellow writer; they unexpectedly discover a mentor; they come to live in a town or city that, previously foreign, becomes as dear to them as home. No ranking ought to pretend to establish the absolute truth about program quality, and in keeping with that maxim the rankings that follow have no such pretensions.”
Then again, that sentence was like _so_ buried — it was all the way down in the seventh sentence of an eight-page article. In my 2010 article (whose title you again managed, somehow, to quote without the inconvenience of reading it) I wrote:
“One’s final application and matriculation decisions can never and should never be made on the basis of facts and figures alone…an applicant’s final calculus is, understandably, more a product of instinct and personal proclivity than cold logic.”
Perhaps you don’t find my articles provocative because you don’t actually read them? Because I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t have found your rant above provocative if I hadn’t read it. So things do seem to kind of work that way. Maybe while you drink the tea you say you’re so fond of you could have, like, your browser open or something?
The other funny thing is that you are not “quoting me” when you quote advertising copy written by a magazine. And yet, even that _ad copy_ is telling: It announces that the rankings rank programs based on several measures (only one of which is funding, as you well know but pretend not to because you don’t want to face the poor selectivity, placement, size, duration, cost-of-living, and popularity showings of the schools your favor, all of which are detailed in the rankings), which is exactly what the rankings _do_ claim to do. The P&W rankings rank the “best” programs on precisely those measures they claim to rank programs by: selectivity, placement, funding, popularity, and nearly a dozen other measures.
So no, you’re not “quoting me” when you quote a headline published by the University of Arizona MFA program on its intranet crowing about its placement in the P&W rankings — as more than 100 programs have so crowed in the 24 months P&W has been doing comprehensive rankings. So are New School students and boosters ahead of the curve in denigrating these rankings, or well behind it? I don’t know — you’d have to quote headlines from 100 program websites to figure it out, I guess.
You may see problems in the methodology — and I agree with you, it’s not a perfect methodology and I’d love to see you find a quote in which I say otherwise (to the research-cave, mate!) — but you can’t a) offer a better, workable methodology (I’ve been working on that problem for five years now), or b) claim that the methodology is “deceptive” (as you just did, deceptively) when P&W published a _fifty-page methodology article_ for free on its website that you could go look at (and _not_ read, and title-quote) right now. There is zero deception here; if you’re going to call me a liar why don’t you dredge up some of your research-produced quotes showing that I lie about the methodology P&W uses or fail to explain portions of it in exhaustive detail.
And by the way: What MFA consulting firm would that be, mate? Can you point me to its website? I’d appreciate that. It seems that, like all your data, your intel here is way out of date. I don’t know: We could listen to one disgruntled blogger whose wife attends the largest unfunded MFA program in the world (literally), or hundreds and hundreds of MFA applicants who will tell you I’ve done consulting work with them for free since 2006. If you did well-intentioned pro bono work for five years and then got called out by some blogger hack you’d be miffed, too. I suspect you don’t have that problem; this snide blog is the sum total of what you have to offer your community, I’d guess.
As for selectivity — who cares about it, mate? Oh, mate… everyone does, that’s who.
We agree on one thing: No one interested in a genre the IWW _doesn’t offer_ should apply to the IWW in that genre. Because they won’t be admitted. Gosh, should the rankings clarify that?
But as to whether going into $100,000 in debt for a program _you yourself_ don’t claim is better than the IWW — whereas the IWW is free — I dunno, I’d say you made the argument for me.
As to why I went to HLS — well, to become a highly-paid _public defender_, of course. You know those… highly-paid public defenders, don’t you? Fat cats, all. Just like all those fat cats at the “still expensive” University of Iowa I went to… like thousands of other MFA applicants, at other programs, over the past five years… for free.
Cheers.
S.
Seth,
So . . . no to the pizza and beer then?
I am offended you would think I am “fond of” chamomile tea. I am not. Pomegranate Yogi Tea is my current favourite, but this changes with the season. The soothing nature of chamomile tea was a suggestion for you. Because we’re homies. And in addition to getting into trouble with the law and our parents, we also give each other suggestions for flavours of tea.
As a freelance writer myself, I know how titles work, and that sometimes you have no control over them. In my case, I’ve never had an editor completely change the title of a piece I’ve written. And it is even more peculiar in your case because all of the articles with your name attached to them are based off a “study” you conducted, not random articles you wrote. So no, I don’t think an editor went out of their way to go completely against the central thesis of your study. I think the way the titles are worded is in tune with the way you present your “facts.”
And I didn’t quote just titles; there were several instances of direct quotations from articles you’ve written.
I agree that it was very inconvenient having to read your articles, but I did read them in their painful entirety. And the reason I didn’t use the quotes you’ve presented is because then I’d be disagreeing with different points. Since you’ve brought them up, I’ll go ahead and address them:
1) “Irrespective of the approach taken by USNWR, the evils of educational rankings are indeed legion and do urge caution on the part of any prospective analyst of MFA programs. At base it is impossible to quantify or predict the experience any one MFA candidate will have at any one program. By and large, students find that their experiences are circumscribed by entirely unforeseeable circumstances: They befriend a fellow writer; they unexpectedly discover a mentor; they come to live in a town or city that, previously foreign, becomes as dear to them as home. No ranking ought to pretend to establish the absolute truth about program quality, and in keeping with that maxim the rankings that follow have no such pretensions.”
This is a disclaimer and one that is stating the obvious. I’m surprised you didn’t include a line that said, “Seth Abramson will not be held liable if you eat the magazine in which the rankings appear and need to go to the Emergency Room.” Of your many talents: scholar, poet, statistician, teacher’s assistant, you’re not a clairvoyant, unless you have information that is not yet published. Getting an MFA in NYC is a calculated decision, and a positive MFA experience is not the result of the stars aligning randomly. Universities like Columbia and the New School have a top notch faculty, and the students are motivated to write and publish, as well as experience the City on a literary level. And the students have very eclectic academic and professional backgrounds.
2) I am about as offended about the tea as I am with this sentence: “Then again, that sentence was like _so_ buried — it was all the way down in the seventh sentence of an eight-page article.” Seventh sentence is not buried. I don’t appreciate the sarcasm. Be a straight shooter like me. I tell it how it is, without the use of sarcasm. In high school, I was voted “least likely to use sarcasm, especially on blog.”
“One’s final application and matriculation decisions can never and should never be made on the basis of facts and figures alone…an applicant’s final calculus is, understandably, more a product of instinct and personal proclivity than cold logic.”
That applies to any program, doesn’t it? What is so earth shattering about this bit of advice. You must have some really stupid readers on your blog if you need to tell them to think for themselves before applying based solely on your rankings.
I’m not the one who makes announcements that people should find what I write provocative. I don’t care if people find what I’ve written provocative, but am happy you seem to think so. It has left me feeling warm and tingly, the way I feel after eating warm gingerbread.
And it’s not just your methodology that I think is flawed. I think the entire idea is flawed. The reason I won’t offer an alternative is a) I have much better things to do with my life. And b) I find something trouble about the very idea of ranking creative writing MFAs in one blob.
The consulting firm I was referring to was http://www.abramsonleslie.com, which I am terribly sorry had an extremely short run.
I’m not disgruntled in the slightest. Neither is my wife. And our 9 month old daughter, who is attempting to eat my laptop as I type this, is far from disgruntled. For a poet, you are very myopic. I’ve never heard of MFA applicants needing consulting work, but I’ll take your word for it. My question is why do “we” have to either listen to what I say, or the hundreds of MFA charity cases you’ve selflessly helped? Why can’t both be heard?
I’m also not a blogger hack. What’s a blogger hack by the way? Isn’t a blogger a blogger?
By the way, you’re using the vernacular, “mate” all wrong. It is not interchangeable with “man.” It always goes towards the end of a sentence.
The IWW (Iowa Writer’s Workshop) is not free. They offer financial aid, and teaching assistantships, a tiny percentage of which result in tuition remission, but there are still plenty of fees unaccounted for. It is significantly cheaper, but by no means free. Nor should it be. I still don’t get the logic of going to Harvard Law School if you claim your aim was to become a public defender because of your devotion to selfless service. A Teaching Assistantship position pays notoriously low (I know. I was offered it during grad school and promptly turned it down in favor of writing).
But ultimately, it brings it back to my original point, which you highlight with the first quote in this comment. By having such a huge disclaimer, it devalues your entire rating system. When you say that “at base it is impossible to quantify or predict the experience any one MFA candidate will have at any one program. By and large, students find that their experiences are circumscribed by entirely unforeseeable circumstances,” you’re essentially saying that your rating system is unquantifiable. So how can you even make the sweeping statement that any NYC MFA program is useless? But at the end of it all, what’s the point of a rating system that needs long disclaimers in order to justify its existence?