2012 MFA Rankings: The Top Fifty

Hi Caterina, just to correct a few misimpressions I think you may be under (and I should note that all of these clarifications are available, also, in the online, freely-available methodology article for the rankings, which I definitely recommend to you and any others reading this): (1) None of the surveys completed for the rankings proper were conducted on my personal website; (2) substantial empirical evidence about those surveyed is available in the methodology article (including the bases for their information, the number of programs they applied to, and many other pieces of internal demographic data); (3) many education rankings, including the longest-running and most popular such rankings in the United States (those published for the last quarter-century by U.S. News & World Report) rely heavily on unscientific surveys, and in fact the P&W rankings -- which are not a single ranking, of course, but a discrete compilation of nine heterogeneous but non-comprehensive rankings in a single space -- rely less heavily on such surveys than most other ranking methodologies, as detailed at length in the methodology article; (4) the reason the methodology article is so comprehensive is to avoid having consumers of the rankings ask questions, as you have here, whose answers are readily available online and for free (in a document no longer than a single chapter of an average genre-fiction novel); (5) the article regarding under-rated programs to which you refer was in fact devised using hard data compiled for these rankings (that is, it assessed which programs appeared to be substantially less popular among applicants than the hard data associated with those programs -- data relating to selectivity, postgraduate placement, funding, student-to-faculty ratio, cost of living, program duration, and other factors -- would seem to predict); (6) since 2009, the Poets & Writers rankings have been acknowledged by scores of independent media outlets as both a ranking system and one with a national (even international) scope, as well as being cited as the only credible ranking methodology presently in use (the last data-collection effort for the now-defunct USNWR rankings was fifteen years ago, in 1996, when there were approximately 150 fewer full- and low-residency MFA programs than there are today); (7) applicants report (via internal demographic surveys conducted in association with the P&W rankings) that their reliance on previous iterations of the P&W rankings is inconsistent at best (e.g., nearly half of current applicants report a neutral or negative interest-level in prior rankings), and to the extent all ranking methodologies are self-fulfilling prophecies (which is, certainly, at least partially true), they are also virtuous circles which, over time, become more accurate -- as the more popular a program is, the more selective its admissions process can be, the stronger its cohort is, the better its alumni publication record, and thus (in turn) the more popular it becomes (not because of rankings but because the program is actually beginning to undergo internal changes in terms of its cohort quality). In any case, I know none of these responses are particularly surprising to you; you e-mailed me directly about the rankings last month, asking all these questions and more, and I answered you in some detail -- in fact at greater length than I have here. During that prior exchange, you were going by a different name (I don't know what your real name is, but it wouldn't change my responses in any case, of course) and you indicated that the primary reason for your ire toward the rankings was your dissatisfaction with the ranking of your alma mater -- a ranking you felt was hindering your professional opportunities. To that concern I can only say that the program you mention is highly ranked, that employers do not in fact hire new employees on the basis of rankings designed for use by applicants (nor should they), and that certainly no ranking system can please the graduates of every program -- the important thing is that the ranking methodology be transparent, coherent, readily available, and probative. Which is certainly the case here. Thanks for your comments, --Seth Abramson

Hi Caterina, I'm not sure what my educational background has to do with anything? In any case, I actually wasn't trying to persuade you; I know from our previous conversations off-site that you can't be persuaded, my factual clarifications were actually intended for others who might be reading this and erroneously believe that some of the things you've said are accurate. Your latest comment adds some new inaccuracies that now must also be addressed (which is disheartening, but keeping the methodology for the rankings clear, concise, and available to all is one of the tasks that's been set for me and that I set for myself). I did not say there is "nothing" scientific about the rankings; in fact, the methodology article is quite clear that this isn't so. The funding, job-placement, fellowship-placement, student-to-faculty ratio, and selectivity rankings all use available hard data (the largest such stock of MFA-related hard data in the world) and constitute a statistically-sound ordering of that data, just as the rest of the rankings table (which recites nearly ten other program features for every program listed) is constituted almost entirely of hard data. Education rankings are not merely a single column; media outlets which publish rankings deliberately and conspicuously publish all constituent data so that consumers of the rankings can use individual columns as they see fit. So yes, someone interested only in attending a program considered excellent by one's peers is likely to use the left-most column in the rankings, that column by which the rankings are ordered (as some method of ordering must be found); but those who are more interested in other program features will use the other -- separate and distinct -- rankings columns to create their own hierarchies, and they will then (of course) further inflect those hierarchies, as they should, with their own subjective values and interests. Anyone who wants to only use the "scientific" portion of the rankings table, which is substantial, is free to do so and need not worry about the vagaries of surveys. You say that you've read the methodology article; if that's so, you'll know the reason that the P&W rankings do _not_ employ weighting methods, as do a few of the more highly-visible USNWR rankings (even as most of them are actually survey-only rankings). That reason is this: Weighting systems force the intrusion of the researcher's own value system, something P&W has avoided; likewise, weighting systems tend to devalue the subjective values and interests (and impressions and desires) of real consumers, while elevating objective measures to the level of the sacrosanct -- a folly the P&W rankings avoid by ordering the programs on the basis of a measure (the esteem of the best-researched applicants) which by _definition_ takes into account (and precisely in "actual," real-world proportions) whatever it is that the folks the rankings are geared toward (applicants, not alumni like yourself) actually care about. "Caterina" (or "Laura"), you can put as many words in quotes or capital letters as you like, but it doesn't make your understanding of either the rankings or their methodology any more objective or accurate. I've always addressed your concerns head-on -- if you don't like the answers, I do believe it's for the reason you already gave me in prior correspondence: you don't like what the answers mean for your personally and professionally. But as a researcher my obligation is to accuracy and to all consumers of the rankings, not one person. I hope you can understand that. Best, --Seth P.S. The Creative Writing MFA Blog was not founded by me, is not owned by me, is not run by me, and is "voiced" by (depending upon the day and the post) any of the site's seventeen moderators, of which I'm only one. My personal website, The Suburban Ecstasies, was founded by me, is owned by me, and is authored exclusively by me -- and none of the polling for the rankings was conducted there, as I've already said.

Hi Caterina, I think you're failing to distinguish between condescension and this simply being a conversation in which I have more facts and more experience at my disposal -- not because I'm any better than you or anyone else, but because this project is one I've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours working on. You've consistently made your comments personal, which is consistent (I would guess) with the fact that, as you've told me several times here and elsewhere, this is a personal issue for you. It is not a personal issue for me. I don't have an educational pedigree I'm trying to protect; I don't have an ax to grind. I know how the rankings were compiled and I merely correct misstatements on that topic whenever and wherever they arise, the better to spread accurate information rather than disinformation or misinformation. So I will continue to correct your misstatements because it's my job to do that. If you want to state a mere _opinion_ about the rankings, you won't hear me respond (anyone can decide for themselves whether your opinions hold water or not); if you want to make misstatements of fact about the rankings, you will get a response from me because, again, that is my job. I'm afraid I honestly don't see any of this as defending myself. I see it as correcting you. You continue to repeat that you've read the methodology article, but I'm afraid I don't believe you. You note, for instance, that we have no way of knowing how important a consideration location was for surveyed applicants -- but we do, as that information is clearly stated on pg. 1 (that's right, pg. 1) of the methodology article you indicate you read thoroughly and carefully. You ask, with seeming bewilderment, why programs weren't contacted directly; in last year's methodology article (which you indicated previously you had read) there's an entire section devoting to answering just that question. In any case, that said, there's much we agree on: The most common critique of the rankings is that current students and faculty should be surveyed about their own programs; I'm glad that you see, as I do, the impossibility of that methodology (though later in your note you seem to contradict yourself by bemoaning the fact that those surveyed "have no direct experience with the programs"; that sounds like a walk-back to me). But where we diverge is in your insistence that (for instance) a program's acceptance rate is not hard data, but rather "hard data" (in scare-quotes), a somewhat petty bit of recalcitrance which doesn't suggest you're interested in a serious discussion here. The important thing, though, is that just because you don't see the value in anything but unranked recitations of hard data doesn't mean that others do not. For all that you imply that I am narrow-minded and obsessive, the methodology I've spent years working on (in conjunction with many others, BTW; it's hardly the case that all the work has been mine) is intended to suit the disparate needs and interests of thousands of applicants, whereas the assessment regime you insist upon is really only targeted toward increasing your own chances of getting a job, if I understand you correctly. Likewise, you persist in smearing the rankings, or at least the contextual demographic surveys done in conjunction with the rankings, as somehow the product of my own opinions (e.g., "According to you, most applicants don’t care much about the accomplishments of alumni"; no, it's according to applicants, thousands of whom have responded to demographic surveys on such questions, as you would know from reading the methodology article). You certainly do demand a good deal of patience from your reader -- personally attacking me repeatedly, using capital letters, demanding responses to your erroneous subjective impressions of things you appear not to really understand -- but I continue to respond because of the 2% or so of rankings-readers who indicate intense dissatisfaction with the rankings, about half are willing to be corrected as to any misimpressions (willful or otherwise) they may be under about how the rankings were devised. That you are in the other half doesn't dissuade me from trying to speak to the other 1%, and _for_ the 98% who say they find real utility in the rankings. --Seth P.S. It's customary for me (and a lot of people, I think) to engage with others by their first name; as I didn't know what your true first name was or is, I put both possibilities in my last note to you. I certainly have no intention of revealing your full name, though I hope you realize, too, just how easy it is to hide behind the shield of a) anonymity, and b) having strong opinions on a subject you know little about, and then act indignantly when someone who does _not_ hide his identity, and who _did_ do a good deal of work to educate himself on the subject at hand, responds to you with a comprehensive correction of your errors. Generally speaking, it's easier to get someone to honor a plea that they not respond to you if you avoid a) personally insulting them, b) misstating facts you know are important to them, c) asking non-rhetorical questions they're in a position to answer, or d) misleading your reader as to things you've said previously, or that another has said previously, or regarding your own level of research on a topic.

Dear Seth,

I have always respected you and your work, but I feel you were very rude and condescending to the other poster. I feel you had no right to publish her real name; if she wanted people to know it, then she would have posted under her name.

Thanks.

Seth, I can't read your latest posting right now. I was a philosophy major, and apparently a damn good one, with experience in that discipline at three universities. I know how to reason well.
*****
You should not have revealed any part of my name on this site (but I guess doing so is ONE way to scare off your critics). You seem compelled to argue, but not in the way I'm used to from those who analyze, say, a piece of philosophical text (and you were, I'm sure, a fine law student--which is very different from what you're doing now as a pollster). I can see that your posting in response to me is another long one. I can also see from your Internet history that you Google yourself to see who's saying what about you, and then you dominate, at least briefly, those sites.
*****
On one poet's site (this is all publicly accessible), you claimed that your long-winded-ness is because you're a lawyer. Almost all of my "lawyer acquaintances," though, are MUCH more concise in their prose (again, I'm using caps in place of italics). But you did finally apologize on that site for the way you often express yourself. It was the first time I saw you express any serious uncertainty in yourself. Then again, you were in dispute with more than one person on that site.
*****
I don't have the temperament, though, for this kind of nastiness--not unless it's about a social or political issue I care about. What I've observed online is that you often keep writing until you exhaust the other person. It's not that you've "won" the debate; it's that you persist on and on and on, not always playing fair when it comes to either formal or informal reasoning (resorting more to rhetoric, in the classical sense, instead?), until that person is overwhelmed--and not by the force of your argument but by the sheer volume of text you offer in your own defense.
*****
I'm going to take a few weeks (at least!) from this topic. Later, I'll either read your posting or let a friend I trust report to me what it, in general(specifically, the TONE), says.
*****
(Caterina, by the way, is the name of one of my beloved cats.)
*****
L.

Caterina, As I think you know, I have a years-long record of being pretty willing to engage questions about the rankings directly -- it's unworthy of you to suggest I was or am trying to "scare you off." That's never been my M.O. and it isn't now. I don't know your M.O. in engaging people on websites, but from your conduct here it does seem to rely quite heavily on ad hominem attacks and labored attempts at psychoanalysis. I'm really not interested in going down that road with you; this is a thread to discuss the rankings and their methodology, not your opinion of my personal life or personality. I clarified the things about the rankings that needed to be clarified, and that's all I'm here to do. I've done so from time to time on other websites as well; fortunately, the discourse elsewhere has usually been much more temperate than this was. I'll leave it to others to judge where the fault for that lies. Best wishes to you, --Seth

I still can't read your more recent posts, Seth, but I remembered a word choice, from my last email, that I regret: "nastiness" (as if YOU were nasty, which isn't what I meant). I should have, instead, said something akin to "contentiousness," and I'm sorry I didn't.

My dear friends,
I've been following this interesting (to say the least) little argument for a few days and I find it humorous that there is "Youtube" like mudslinging going on. For me personally, I love the rankings as an aspiring applicant. Here is why,
-If it wasn't for the dedication of Seth to compile such data and an attempt by him, to make it as fair and transparent as possible, us applicants would have little resources to turn to when it comes to looking for a program to be a potential suitor. There will always be dissatisfied spectators. Its part of the game. Every person has an opinion and is entitled to it. Also, so much money goes into these applications from each prospective MFA candidate that what Seth has done has allowed for each individual to look at the bigger picture and find a program that they could potentially enjoy.
- As far as selectivity, prestige, location, funding: I can guarantee that a huge portion of the pool of applicants look for funding.
-Personally, you couldn't pay me the world to go to the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Not because they aren't any good (They have an amazing faculty and competitive writers) but because of location. I lived in Iowa for four years. God bless those who can stand looking at corn as entertainment (a hyperbole I admit but Iowa is barren, all would admit. And with those winters, you have to have thick skin).
-In the end, writers want the chance to hone their craft in an environment that they feel productive in. Location, prestige, funding all play a role and differ greatly between individuals. The "rankings" help. The larger scope of the population would agree. Whether there are a few people personally hurt because their alma mater is not up there on the list is a personal affair. A writer's talent, perseverance, and some luck will get their chance in whatever they pursue. The school they graduate from is just a small portion of their professional careers. McCarthy didn't even finish an undergrad at Tennessee. What's his excuse? To be offended by such a trivial ranking conflict is immature. Attending a high ranking institution does not guarantee success. Same as attending one that is not up there doesn't guarantee failure. You are what you make you make of it. Everyone should know that. So with that said, the back and forth from Caterina, is funny. Seth will defend (or rather clarify) something that he worked so hard on so to ask him not to respond is silly.

People, the rankings help a great deal. And they allow for easier access to information that takes a hell of a long time to compile. The information is not incorrect. The list gives you so many options and names of university's. And it is up to the applicant who is investing the money, to find out information about each institution. The personal attacks are silly Caterina. Really? Calling out Seth's Harvard degree? What does that have to do with the discourse. As a third party point of view, its a childish act. I think both parties involved in this argument could use a little bit of humble pie.

Lastly, writers have egos--which sometimes gets infused in their writing. I think the ego bubble on this thread is about to bust. I think one of the misinterpretation that Caterina is caught up on is the labeling of "ranking" opposed to it being called something else (i.e. an informal pole). My advice would be to get over it.

What I dislike about the rankings is that programs that were under the radar such as South Carolina and Texas State broke into the top fifty and now that I am going to apply to them, they will likely be more applicants to those schools. But that's a personal matter which is also laughable. I still will apply, may the best candidate win. Plain and simple.

A round of hugs should be attempted here. Writers at peace. Peace to the world.

Online, Seth feels often works to "disabuse" others of notions (of him or his work) that he believes are inaccurate.
*****
I need to do the same, now that I've reread his initial response to me. (I haven't read his most recent postings and don't intend to read them, or any new ones, very soon; starting with his first posting, he made this topic personal when he referred to the small number of emails I wrote him over the years--as if he thought I was trying to pretend I'm someone I'm not and he was going to publicly expose me by referring to those emails--and I felt his responses were likely to get only more hostile.)
*****
1) I was very polite in my email exchanges with Seth until I finally got annoyed by his email to me on July 2, 2010, which was a response to another concern I had expressed to him about these rankings and which he opened by saying "I see where your confusion lies." I didn't consider it appropriate for a non-statistician to suggest that I must simply be confused about his statistical methods (it came across to me as very pedantic--not the way any professor of mine ever treated me).
*****
Prior to that, the last email I'd gotten from Seth was on May 28. It was a mass email promoting "Northerners." I also emailed him (and Tom Kealey) about the rankings on January 17, 2010.
*****
2) I NEVER said that I felt my professional opportunities were being hindered. I took a long time to finish my now-287-page thesis (which was 347 pages at the time of my thesis defense) because I didn't want to defend it until I felt it was closer to "finished"; though I completed my coursework in 2003, I didn't defend my thesis until last December, so I actually completed my MFA at the end of the fall of 2010; thus, I didn't even start applying for full-time jobs that might be compatible with an MFA until January. For two and-a-half years in the interim, I worked as a newspaper reporter (writing feature stories, mainly).
*****
I DID, however, express concern that these rankings COULD unfairly affect graduates' prospects for employment.
****
Now that I've had a chance to clarify the content of my most recent emails to/from Seth Abramson:
*****
In June I finished editing a sizable portion of a book collection that's under contract with a well known academic publishing company (which I won't name because I don't want to drag them into this)--a job I got in large part because of my MFA.
*****
I don't want to be misrepresented. I also don't want to subject myself right now to any more "explanations" of why I just don't understand Seth's rankings. I do understand them. I just don't agree with certain of his conclusions, and I made a reasonable case for why I don't.
*****
As I mentioned yesterday, my brother is a statistician--his PhD is in mathematical statistics, and his dissertation, in which he disproved a well-known lemma, heavily utilized game theory--and he knows how tricky it is to interpret "hard data" of the sort on which this ranking system is based.
*****
Laura/Caterina

[I compiled all of the very few recent emails I wrote to Seth, and I did so in my attempt to illustrate to him how decent they generally were, though I don't know if they'll ever get through--literally or figuratively--to him. I'd like to end the stupidity of this exchange for good, but when I hear that he publicly mis-portrayed what I privately wrote to him...]
*****
Someone informed me today, Seth, of your posted comment that some of my emails to you were "very aggressive." Therefore, I did read that posting of yours this evening (while avoiding the rest). These emails from me are aggressive? Really? Included are all of my recent messages to you (and my few earlier ones were at least as polite as most of these). You pat yourself on the back for using your name on the P & W site (and I hope you would for these articles!--you're under contract with them), but you deeply mis-characterize the tone of our very few email exchanges, none of which I want to post (though I'm damn tempted to) because I don't want to, for example, publicly "dis" another program to which I compared my own.
*****
You're either being disingenuous about the content of my emails or you're too emotionally/egoistically invested in this project to fairly read what I wrote. Now that you've revealed part of my identity, I resent even more your description of my mostly EXTREMELY nice emails to you. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position where I can really defend myself on that count.
*****
You want to talk about aggressive? How about when you responded online to someone who disagreed with you by saying to that person (and not as a joke), "you little jerk!" (I'm not going to bother looking up the site so that I can provide the link, which I bet you can easily locate--others who are curious will have to do their own exhaustive Google searches--but I'll agree that you've at times taken similar abuse online, though none of it ever came from me). I have never said anything even remotely as hostile to anyone online (and I certainly didn't say anything as disrespectful in my emails to you).

In response to one's critics, blatant name-calling is neither a professional nor intellectual form of "discourse," as some PhD-level folks in the humanities love to put it. Neither is reporting on private written conversations that the other party might have reason to keep private, and I don't deserve to be painted as someone who rabidly opposed you when I didn't.
*****
I was SO hesitant, initially, to post my views on this page, but I now see that I wasn't nearly hesitant enough. Ye gods.
*****
C.

Of course you don't.

C/L

Sorry, guys. You both sound petty and pretentious. Why don't you use some of that motivation for your next masterpiece?

Another way in which these rankings work is that they provide MFA applicants with a springboard for research. Before I came across an earlier version of these rankings, I had a difficult enough time finding a somewhat comprehensive list of potential schools.
Now, I can scroll through this .pdf and in my spare time do some program googling in order to complete my own spreadsheet. I am initially interested in funding and location, but I move on to things that these rankings couldn't possibly take into account (such as potential for obtaining degrees simultaneously in both fiction and film studies). And this in a nutshell is what the rankings provide: I don't have to spend too much time looking for GRE requirements on a school's website, and instead, I can focus on the things that would really make a program attractive to me.
Anyway, I was just hoping to see if we could get a conversation started on how other applicants use this list.

Sam, I'm sorry to hear that. The rankings make up less than 2% of the annual content of the magazine (one-tenth of one-sixth), and the other 98% of what P&W (a non-profit) publishes each year presumably includes a lot of material you enjoy, if you originally subscribed prior to the introduction of the rankings in 2009. I think it would be like cancelling a subscription to Poetry Magazine because you truly detested 1.7% of the poetry published there annually. But that's my take, and of course I respect the fact that you obviously feel quite differently. --S.

Hi Caterina, I'll repeat here what I've said elsewhere: Rankings tables are specifically designed not to be reducible to a single column. What I mean by that is, a comprehensive ranking doesn't _merely_ say, this program is ranked first, this one second, and so on; it provides readers with _all_ of the attendant constituent data so that individual consumers of the rankings can ignore any column they wish to, reorder the programs based on their own values, and so on. So, for instance, you are saying the rankings don't seem to take into account the strength of the writers produced by your alma mater. That's incorrect; the hard-data rankings in the table that measure cohort quality are Selectivity, Funding (because high funding increases applicant-pool size, yield, and so on), Job Placement, and Fellowship Placement. Arkansas ranks in the Top 10 worldwide in both Job Placement and Fellowship Placement (average ranking in those two categories: 8th), the equivalent of a #2 or #3 worldwide ranking back when there were a third as many programs (i.e., at the time of the USNWR rankings you mentioned several times). Arkansas ranks in the Top 20 in Funding (specifically: 16th), the equivalent of a #5 worldwide ranking in the USNWR rankings you've mentioned. So if you want to speak of the USNWR rankings, Arkansas is Top 5 internationally in three of the four "cohort-quality-indicative" rankings. Even in its "worst" cohort-quality-indicative ranking, Selectivity, its current Top 40 position (#32) would be the equivalent of a Top 10 positioning in 1996. So the rankings in every way register the excellence you're seeing in the Arkansas alumni pool. The mistake I feel you're making is you're using the left-most column (Popularity) as a proxy for cohort quality, when it is not intended to be that--in fact, that's the very reason the constituent hard-data rankings I mentioned above are included in the table. The reason a program might rank lower in Popularity than in the cohort-quality-indicative rankings is because applicants report that their application decisions rest on countless factors--Location being a top-three consideration. In your correspondence with me you conceded that Arkansas may lose many applicants because of its location (I have no opinion on that; I'm just repeating what you've said), meaning that by your own reading of the situation Arkansas performing worse in Popularity than in the cohort-quality-indicative categories is _exactly_ what you would have expected. This is why I keep saying I think you are misreading the table; it is _not_ because I intend to condescend to you, it is only because... well, because you are misreading the table. --S.

I'm sorry, Caterina, but that's simply not acting in good faith. You've come on here asking questions, which I've answered; made erroneous claims, which I've corrected; expressed legitimate concerns, which I've attempted to assuage. And all you've said -- over and over -- is, "Well, I'm not reading anything else anyone is writing, but..." or "Well, I know I asked you ten questions and perhaps you answered them but I'll never know because here's ten thousand characters on a totally different topic..." A good faith participant in a discussion reads what others write, considers what they say, and responds to their concerns. I've done that. You've consistently gotten personal with me and then refused to read my (entirely non-personal) responses to you. I haven't referenced your e-mails to me for many messages now -- as you'd know, if you were reading anything other than your own opinions. I wouldn't be quite so proud of making this thread into your own personal echo chamber, Caterina. Read my comments: You will see that they _directly_ reply to your concerns, time and time again. --S.

Regarding the last posting: In posting my first comment, I wasn't intending to incite the ire of Seth Abramson (though I knew I probably would). I'm not even reading his comments now, which I'm avoiding because I've seen his lengthy exchanges with others on the Internet; after all, I didn't post in the first place for Seth's benefit, and I don't think a back-and-forth with him will be productive, especially for other readers. My initial posting was in no way unkind or inflammatory, but his first response to it brought up an outside discussion that was mostly polite and was irrelevant to the points I made on this site. So, yeah; I got angry.
*****
My motives for posting have nothing whatsoever to do with a "need for love" (I would never draw such a conclusion about someone based on her online comments); I knew that by posting, I would be risking a long and hostile response from Seth, which is why I hesitated doing so for several days. But when any one person has this kind of influence regarding a complicated process, I think criticism is healthy (I was similarly uncomfortable with the disproportionate influence that Oprah Winfrey's book club had, though I fully understand that she had the legal right to express her opinion--which is what it was, her opinion). Online, Seth has said in his own defense, "Anyone who knows me knows that..." Well, I'll just say that my FRIENDS know that "self-aggrandizing" doesn't apply.
*****
The implication in one of Seth's replies was that I was somehow being less than honorable by not using my real name, but I notice that others who've commented (including the last poster) haven't used their real names either, and I think that choice should be respected by the author.

P.S. Could we please drop this charade that you are not reading anyone else's comments (particularly mine)? I find your claim that "friends" of yours are reading the thread on your behalf and reporting back to you about what's been said particularly bizarre and... well, creepy, to be honest. Of _course_ you're reading all of the comments in this thread -- that appears to be exactly the sort of attention you're craving here. Certainly you are not here to have your questions answered; that I've done in every single instance, without fail, and yet it appears to have had no impact whatsoever on your interest in this thread. OTOH, you're still referencing things I said ten comments ago as though they're "fresh," and still seem to think I'm using your real name when I only mentioned it once in passing (maybe twenty comments and two weeks ago), so maybe you're really _not_ reading anyone's posts but your own? But no -- that would simply be too bizarre and creepy, I can't possibly believe it. --S.

Seriously. Shut the Hell up. Both of you! You guys sound like little immature brats with elevated vocabularies. Caterina, sorry, you've said your piece. Shut the f*** up. Seth-let this banter die already. You guys are supposed to be professionals? Dear god I'm embarrassed for both your alma maters. You shame them with your stupidity. Grow up! Both of you.
*****

I love the open letter to P&W written by various members of Creative Writing Programs. What's your opinion of it Seth?

-HW

I am not Caterina, nor have I ever been Caterina. Seth merely thinks I am because he can't believe that more than one person would disagree with his rankings.

Thanks.

Hi Clara, everything you wrote about the Facebook group in question is untrue. Literally, everything. I remember a time when that stopped people from writing things online. Anyway, feel free to join the group yourself to confirm this. --S.

I don't know, I was a quiet member of the group last year and while Seth never specifically said, "I advise you all to do x" -- wait, actually, he probably did, casually, in his discussions encouraging us to seek fully funded programs. Specifically telling us everything negative he could find about the New York programs, too, to the point that he would get in arguments with people. This is all casual and offered as opinion, but where is the line drawn between someone's opinion and the opinion of the guy who does the rankings? When does it become advice about what Seth thinks is important?

MJ024, That's a good point -- prior to this year's surveys, discussions were certainly had in the applicant community in which I provided data about individual programs being discussed. Sometimes that data appeared "negative" (e.g., in discussions of funding packages), sometimes "positive" (I recall that New York University used the MFA Blog to get out the word about its new funding scheme), though of course I never advised anyone to apply to this place or that place, nor offered personal opinions on individual programs (almost no one knows my _personal_ opinions on individual programs, as they're irrelevant to the ranking). My policy was always this: As long as accurate data is being mainlined into the community that needs it, that's what matters -- what's done with that accurate data is not, at the end of the day, my business. Choosing an MFA program is such a personal decision. In any case, this year my role was as described several comments below -- I corrected misinformation as necessary, but did not speak of individual programs beyond that. As to the long-standing conventional wisdom regarding seeking a good financial arrangement, it seems the cat is out of the bag: in a recent survey, MFA faculties recently ranked Funding the #1 concern for MFA applicants, and a recent letter signed by a number of MFA faculty members states, "No applicant should put her or himself in financial peril in order to pursue the [MFA] degree." I think this is pretty much the advice all applicants are getting now. --S.

If you look closely at the signers of the letter, you'll also see many from well funded programs, including programs in this poll's top 25 (and that what it is, after all: a POLL among applicants and potential applicants). There's no empirical basis for concluding that a programs's popularity among applicants correlates to knowledge of the quality of that program, and assuming such a correlation is the sort of mistake a good statistician would never make. (Another mistake a good statistician would never make is to equate correlation with causation.)