For Prospective Students—
AWP's 2011 Ranking of MFA Programs

Sorry, but AWP provides no rankings of creative writing programs because such rankings are misleading.

Good advice on choosing a writing program should help you discover your own literary affinities, but no magazine’s centerfold of academic rankings is up to that task. Although AWP values Poets & Writers as a peer, Poets & Writers’ annual rankings of writing programs cheapen their usual standards. Rankings of writing programs simulate literary affinities; one should never confuse that simulation with finding one’s own authentic literary ties. Such rankings do for creative writing what pornography does for love. The rankings are provocative and good for commerce, but the heart of the matter resides elsewhere, in your own preferences as a reader, in your own sensibility as a writer, in your own love for certain books—and not in the dubious statistics of Poets & Writers’ polling. If you are applying to graduate schools in creative writing, it is crucial that you begin with a survey of our programs, but that survey must largely be your own, and it must be based on your own personal appraisal of the writers who teach in our programs.

 

One Artistic Decision among Many

You should approach your choice of a writing program as an artistic choice. Word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, or stanza by stanza—you will make millions of such choices as a writer; and, ultimately, each choice must be your own. As a writer, you will find more kinship with some authors than with others. Now that you plan to apply to a few programs, you should identify which contemporary writers you admire most and find out where they teach. In choosing a program, you are choosing a community for your artistic mentorship. Choosing that mentorship is far more idiosyncratic an enterprise than choosing a business school or other courses of vocational training.

If you plan to write a historical novel related to the snubbing of women’s careers in science and medicine, for instance, you should probably choose a program where a strong practitioner of the historical novel is in residence along with those writers who are experts in feminist narratives and criticism. Or, if you wish to write experimental poetry, you might only be punishing yourself if you unwittingly go to a highly ranked program staffed mainly by practitioners of traditional verse.  Your years of study in a creative writing program will be more fruitful if you can work with those writers whose works hold some affinities with your own subject matter and with your own aesthetics. Whose advice do you think would be most useful to you in helping you shape your first book?—that’s the big overwhelming question. Specious rankings of MFA programs cannot answer that for you.

Please see the introduction to our guide to writing programs for more advice in choosing the program best for you. For a continued explanation of why the rankings in Poets & Writers are not in your best interest as a prospective student, please read on.

 

A Guide to the Dubious Methodology behind the Rankings

A few components to Poets & Writers’ 2011 rankings warrant some commentary because they are so misbegotten. The producer of the rankings, Seth Abramson, has deposited on the Web a long and tedious defense of the methodology behind his rankings, but his lugubrious exegesis does nothing to bolster the credence of the rankings. The rankings are fallacious for at least three reasons: (1) because they rely on the wrong sample of individuals to survey, (2) because they privilege mass-appeal over one’s own artistic choice of mentors, and (3) because they emphasize money over literary and artistic sustenance.

1. The Wrong Survey Subjects

The most egregious aspect of Poets & Writers’ survey is that it relies on a misleading sample, a polling of 527 prospective students. The programs were rated mainly by those who have not yet attended a workshop or seminar or met the faculty of those programs. Is this the best way to confirm where the best teachers reside? Or the best curricula and program philosophies? Previous rankings of writing programs, like those produced by U.S. News & World Report and by the Atlantic magazine, relied on appraisals by graduates and faculty in peer programs. Apparently, Abramson preferred a methodology that elevates inexperience far above first-hand knowledge. In book reviews, we expect the critics to have read the books they have evaluated for us. But it seems in rating programs, it is okay to rate them without actually studying in them. Seth Abramson and Poets & Writers have simplified the production of criticism. Perhaps next they will produce restaurant ratings by critics who have never eaten in those restaurants—or movie reviews by critics who have never actually seen the movies, only their promotional materials.

2. The Misinformation of Mass Appeal

Those 527 prospective students behind the rankings were selected by Abramson among the many visitors to the MFA Blog, a popular website, which received 410,000 unique visitors over the polling period, according to Abramson.  Abramson advises prospective students to be on guard against “sacrificing their unique aesthetics on the altar of consensus” at the same time he argues that his survey gains authority from the popular consensus of the MFA Blog. The fault line of this reasoning quakes with laughter. Abramson argues that the rankings are done in order to bring greater transparency to the programs at the same time his popularity contest obscures the artistic choices by which one should choose a program.

3. Money over Honey

One laudable goal of Abramson’s exertions is “less overall debt among MFA graduates.” This is generally a good thing, and most MFA programs are working towards providing more financial support for more of their students, although, with the decline of university endowments, this has become more challenging in the current recession. Nonetheless, the promise of a free ride through an MFA program should not persuade you to discount your own artistic preferences, nor should it persuade you to cheapen the value of graduate study with accomplished writers. The promise of money should not replace the promise of the best literary sustenance. Some programs have important features—literary magazines, editorships, publishing labs, literary centers, strong screenwriting or playwriting components, advocacy for social service and social justice—that rankings do not acknowledge.

When I chose the first of two writing programs that I attended, I chose a program that did not offer me a teaching assistantship, a fellowship, or an MFA; it was an MA program, and I had to borrow money to attend. In spite of the expense, I chose that program because I admired the writers and scholars who taught there. It took me years to pay off that student loan, but I am still certain that program was the best choice for me. It was worth the cost. At that expensive MA program, I found inspiration and literary friends. I would do it all over again. 

It might be best for you, too, to choose literary honey over money. Writing is a difficult art; it might be best simply to choose the best possible literary sustenance, if you can afford to do so. The free ride that Abramson extols is not necessarily the best ride.

 

The Best Choice in a Creative Writing Program

If you are looking into attending a creative writing program, you know by now that an artist must often stand aloof from crass considerations, or away from the shallows of a spreadsheet. The rankings of colleges and universities are annual features of a few magazines partly because such rankings combine mass-appeal and cash-appeal. Rankings sell advertising; rankings sell magazines. But rankings are superficial indicators of what may be best for your own artistic development.

In the novel Letters by John Barth, a character writes, “…the world is richer in associations than in meanings, and…it is the part of wisdom to distinguish between the two.” Rankings of writing programs are rich in associations, but they lack meaningful ties to help you down your own path as a writer. You must discern on your own who might provide those affinities for a fruitful mentorship. If you haven’t read many of the contemporary authors who teach in our programs, start now and savor the challenge before you. One must become an expert reader before one can hope to become an accomplished writer. In today’s world, with its cascades of superficial imagery, arriving at what is authentic is hard work. As a writer, that difficulty will be inseparable from your daily work, so don’t seek the easy way out now, as seductive as that might be.

Make a short list of programs based on your appreciation of the works of the authors who teach at those programs. Then, narrow that list by your financial needs and by your other personal preferences. Do some soul-searching about who you would like to become as an artist, rather than defer to academic rankings. The more solitary choices you make, the more success you will likely enjoy in the development of your own audience. That’s your cherished paradox as a writer: you help to build a literary community through solitary work. The more independent decisions you make, the more likely it will be that you will have a great experience at the creative writing program of your choice.

    —D.W. Fenza
        Executive Director
        The Association of Writers & Writing Programs