My aim: To be admitted into an MFA Creative Writing program that I want to be in.
The candidates: The programs listed at the AWP website, which appears to list all of the Creative Writing programs in the country.
Round 1:
To create a basic list, I included all Division I schools from any state I might even have the remotest desire to attend. The lone exceptions were schools I know I have zero desire to attend. UC-Riverside, we're looking at you. Two non D-I schools were included for the heck of it, though their chances are remote.
Round 1 Total: 107 schools
Round 2:
It was a fluff way to do it, I suppose, but for my second cuts, I removed all the schools who didn't have a football team. I love football, especially college football, and when I attended campuses that didn't have a team, I really missed it in the fall.
Three universities sans football were allowed back on the list:
-UC-Irvine (My best friend is getting her second bachelor's there and plans to attend graduate school in the area)
-Stetson University (Gorgeous campus from what I can see and there's a Delta Sigma Phi chapter there)
-Cleveland State (DSP colony and fencing team. I really, really miss fencing).
20 schools got tossed as a result, making numbers significantly more manageable. We've still got a long way to go, though.
Round 2 Total: ~85
Round 3:
I thought about winnowing things via fencing, but decided against it, for even if the school doesn't have a fencing team or club, it's possible that their city still has a club. Looking up roughly 85 schools and cities is too much work for something that should be more of a tiebreaker than anything else, so instead it's on to scrutinizing the individual programs.
Factors Sought:
- No more than 2 courses a semester for graduate assistantships. Ideally it'd be one a semester.
- Tuition waivers
- Working on literary publications optional
- Ideally GRE not required, though if I really like a school I'll allow it on there.
- No emphasis on American and British literature for the lit electives. I think that by doing this, you ignore the value of comparative literatures. Also, programs that focus heavily on the American-British tradition strike me as conservative and in danger of being dated, so thanks, but no thanks.
Not that strict a factor list, I know. But I'm keeping things general for now.
I've already started looking at programs and some schools have fallen off the list already for one reason or another. I'll list a few of the ones that got dropped, just for the fun of it.
San Diego State
Yeah, I know. Surprising considering my interest in San Diego, but it seems like their program's largely about publishing and editing their umpteen literary journals. Nice if you want to get into that field. I don't. While teaching at the collegiate level is still an option, I'd grow to loathe publishing/editing in a hurry. Bye-bye Aztecs.
Cornell
Ivy League is good. Requiring 4 of 6 electives be British and American lit is not. They also require first year students work on their lit journal. Two out of three in this ultra-competitive hunt
is enough to get booted. See ya!
Indiana
I like three year programs, which Indiana has and their program is designed to churn out creative writing professors, which is cool, but in line with that focus, the teaching load is rather nasty. Three courses a year for three years doesn't leave much time for actual writing. If the only thing I wanted to be was a creative writing professor, the Hoosiers would be tops on my list. Alas, I want more than that. Goodbye!
Some interesting front-runners are cropping up so far, but I'll keep them secret for now as I've still got a lot of researching to do and things can change rapidly.
It's fun, though.