Thursday, September 22, 2011
Debate over ranking of MFA graduate programs
To get us started, here's some news that's been hot in the Graduate School world lately. Poets and Writers annually "ranks" the best MFA programs, but they do so with questionable criteria. Check out the debate here and add your thoughts if you like!
http://therumpus.net/2011/09/questionable-ranking-systems-for-mfa-programs/
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
One of the things I have noticed during my career as a Bellingham Review reader is the incredible number of MFA writers whose work was extremely generic, sometimes boring, and usually received a "no" from both readers and editors.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like certain MFA programs churn out the same type of writer year after year. Does anyone have useful advice for finding a program with some originality? Any helpful links?
That's a great question, Marilyn. It seems that "originality" would be a difficult quality to rank. Probably one indicator would be to look at course offerings and see if they offer something beyond the standard workshop (as we do here with our "Studies In" courses and cross-genre offerings. Any other thoughts?
ReplyDelete