Is the MFA Right for You?: Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Apply
In the years since I graduated with my MFA from Virginia Tech, I’ve helped dozens of writers apply to Creative Writing MFA and PhD programs. Through our work together, some of these writers ultimately received admission offers from programs like Brown, Columbia, and the University of Cincinnati. Others decided that they ought to wait for another season of their life to send in an application. And others still decided the MFA wasn’t right for them after all.
Is it weird to say that I feel just as fulfilled when a writer realizes the MFA definitely isn’t their next step as I do when a writer gets into their dream school? Let me be the first to say that pursuing an MFA was one of the best decisions of my life—it totally changed my relationship to writing and how I saw (and now see) myself as a writer. MFAs, though, are also often romanticized, and applicants usually don’t have an accurate understanding of what an MFA can and cannot “do” for them, both professionally and artistically.
And who can blame them? There aren’t a lot of resources out there on MFA programs. Tom Kealey’s book The Creative Writing MFA Handbook*, although comprehensive, was published in 2008, which made it outdated even when I was first filling out my own MFA applications in 2017. More than a decade later, other titles that exist alongside Kealey’s include The Low-Residency MFA Handbook* by Lori May and Now What?: The Creative Writer’s Guide to Success After the MFA*, published in 2011 and 2014, respectively.
Of course, a lot of the advice in these books still stands. And there exist some truly phenomenal updated resources online like the Poets and Writers MFA database and the MFA Draft Facebook group. Plus, even though ONLY POEMS is a pretty young publication, its staff has already done a lot of work to expand resources for MFA applicants on their website, Substack, and Instagram. Ironically, not only for poets or even only poems, ONLY POEMS has a lot to offer writers applying in any genre. (Check out this interview I did on MFA programs with ONLY POEMS last winter.)
What matters most to me when I work with writers contemplating pursuing an MFA is providing them with as many resources (and guided questions) as possible so that they can make an informed decision for themselves about whether or not applying for an MFA fits their broader goals.
While researching MFA programs, here are some questions to consider:
What are my writing goals, and what steps have I already taken toward them?
What next steps do I envision that I need to take to reach my goals?
How might pursuing an MFA help me reach my goals, and how might pursuing an MFA work against me from reaching my goals?
Can I reach my goals without completing an MFA?
What do I expect to be able to do after I finish my MFA?
Find these questions helpful—or have another in mind that I missed? Let me know! And if you are looking for more support as you work through the MFA application process, check out my new course MFA Application Crash Course and my Writing Coaching page.
Good luck to everyone applying this season, and—as I say in my interview with ONLY POEMS—I want you to know: Whether or not you get into an MFA program is not a reflection of whether or not you are a “real” writer. You are already a real writer.
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