I'm 30.

What is V. W.'s advice? (Shame on me!)

Yay for the young ones!

I also look noticeably younger than twenty-one--more like seventeen/eighteen unless I make an effort to age myself. I'm vaguely worried about teaching because of this. I'm also 5'2", which doesn't help.

Jennatelesca, I think that's a great idea to take that year off. And I apologize to anybody if it sounded like a lecturing email, 'cause it wasn't intended to be. You'd think that as a writer I'd be more concious of tone in emails and message boards.

Bighark: I hear you. I actually took some time off work and lived off savings when I was in my mid-twenties, trying to write. I wasted so so so so much time, it kills me now. I've got two young girls now though, and man, any second I get to write is precious. I try so hard to make the most of my writing time now. Not to mention that my writing when I was 22 pretty much sucked.

I have dated -- seriously dated -- women who were 10 years older than me, and (perhaps due to an obsessive, caliginous search for symmetry? :) ), also women who were 10 years younger than me. (Freak out not, ladies and gentlemen: for the most part, I date women in my age-range).

i swear i've started becoming paranoid about my heart rate even...

Windiciti said: Sometimes not quite sure how it works, especially if you want to address someone who wrote about another thread.

I am 26 right now and applying to MFA programs; I'll be 27 when I start.

I already knew I wanted to pursue an MFA when I was 20, but ultimately decided not to apply to programs right out of undergrad. One of the events that provoked this decision was that I lost an undergraduate writing contest at my university. So, I figured that if I couldn't even win that, then I probably wasn't going to get accepted by the Iowa Writers' Workshop or anywhere else remotely competitive. Another reason I decided not to apply was this: I realized how unlikely it would be that I'd finish my MFA and immediately, at age 24, publish an award-winning novel and land a tenure-track teaching position somewhere. In short, I knew I'd have to find some way of paying the bills after completing my degree, and I didn't see my BA in English lit helping out too much.

In the five years since I completed undergrad, I have held down two despised corporate office jobs, earned an MA in Spanish literature, taught 4 semesters of Spanish at the college level, traveled internationally, been engaged and un-engaged, become a certified educator in the state of Missouri, taught 2 years of Spanish at the high school level and lots more. During this time, I have learned a lot about life, people and also literature. When I was 22, most of my short stories were about artistic people in their early 20s getting stoned and having sex. Now, I have a much broader repertoire of experiences and material to work with.

I don't mean this to offend young people who are looking to pursue an MFA. In my case, I will be 30 years old when I complete the degree, and then it will probably be a few years beyond that before I embark upon any kind of academic career. I realize that this might get cumbersome if I want to have a family, so some people might feel like they are better off starting young.

As someone who is entering a low-res MFA program in Dec. and who is old enough to remember several Presidents before Bush and Clinton and Bush (again!), I would say there are multiple factors that contribute to "readiness" for an MFA. The decade of my mid-20s to mid-30s was one filled with personal crises and serious health issues. Intellectually, I could have handled the demands of an MFA without a problem; emotionally and physically, I was a mess.

So, to the statement: "Go when you're writing is ready."

I would add: Go when your life is ready.

I'm not sure the apprenticeship of writers and engineers can be compared. Writing is a much more subjective discipline. Yes, writing is a craft and there are types of writing that could objectively be called good or bad. Once past that level though, writing involves elements of taste. Writing requires intense observation of life, both broad and small insights. If becoming a good writer was merely a matter of amassing a large vocabulary and becoming expert on the rules of grammar, I could compare it to something as fact-based as engineering. But I think writing is something entirely different.

Nobody would suggest that engineers wait five years out of undergrad before attending graduate school, in order to better attain "life experience," and therefore be better engineers.

In Reply To

I see your point, but we have to remember that the arts constitute a unique situation.

The people I know who earned graduate degrees in engineering ended up earning $75K to over six figures almost imediately. On the other hand, I've known people who completed MFAs and then couldn't even get a decent job with benefits. Why? Because it's very difficult to get hired full-time on the skills of writing poems or short stories and maybe being able to discuss some 20th century American literature.

I know this sounds critical, but I speak from experience. I completed an MA in Spanish lit almost directly after undergrad (I took one year off) and then had to string various part-time jobs together for months before I landed any kind of stable employment. The reason for this was because my main qualifications were the ability to b.s. about literature and theory, and that was with the advantage of a second language. Having spent so much time in academia, I had almost no valid information about what was necessary to get a job in the outside world; I thought I could walk out with my MA and straight into an awesome, full-time teaching position somewhere. Ha! It has now taken me 2 years and lots of night school to earn educator certification and even hope to make a living wage, but at least I'll have something to fall back on after I do my MFA.

In summary (and I have posted this before), I would suggest to people who are seniors in college and contemplating going right into an MFA to consider how they will pay the bills afterword. If you have an undergraduate degree in something "marketable," then you will probably be ok. If not, then you might at least think about the possibility of taking some time off and exploring viable career options.

As someone else stated, grad school is not the real world. In grad school, everything you do is directed toward improving yourself and your own work. In the real world, everything you do is directed toward benefitting someone else: the company you work for; the students you teach; whoever. Having to hold down such a "selfless" job also teaches you higher standards of professionality and accountability, which can serve you well once you do go back to school. I have seen people go into all kinds of graduate programs just because it seems like a logical extension of undergrad, and it's easier to continue in academia than to venture into the unknown of the professional world. I think those who have spent some time working tend to have more appreciation for the graduate experience and may therefore get more out of it.

All this being said, I did in fact go into a grad program at age 23, so I'm not in a place to criticize the young people who plan to do the same. I'm only sharing my experience.

within grad programs it is the older students who tend to be the most immature.

do NOT go for an MFA program if you're doing it because you're not sure what else to do.

Do you think OLD age is a factor in the admission process? If so, how much of a factor is it?

<snip>

Yes...I know it's all about the writing sample! But when they're trying to narrow down the list of applicants to the "best" 1-4%, are they more likely to take the younger (early 30s) writer over the older writer (40s or 50s), all other things being equal?

Do you think OLD age is a factor in the admission process?

are they more likely to take the younger (early 30s) writer over the older writer (40s or 50s), all other things being equal?

This is an interesting topic which, on other forums and blogs I have taken up residence in, has elicited a tremendous amount of debate--some of it hurtful, shortsighted, and negative. I, myself, am twenty one in two short hours (I live in Los Angeles) and I hope my youngness does not count against me. If the selection process truly is based almost exclusively on the writing sample, then I don't think I will have too much to complain about. If anything, my age will work well against what I have written, because it isn't the stereotypical fodder one imagines someone my age should be writing. That is to say, no poems about drunken affairs and jitled dorm-mate lovers. I will say, though, that in my travels I have encountered a number of older applicants who have matter-of-factly stated that they would refuse to respect anyone below the age of thirty. In this whole application process, the thing that bothers me most is not my GRE scores or writing a teaching statement, it's contemplating the idea that, in the eyes of some of my classmates, my biological age (regardless of whatever my emotional or mental age is) will be a hindrance. I can't help being ready now. I've been deadset on applying to MFA's since I started college and found out there was a degree that accompanied what I wanted to be. Prolonging it any longer just seems unnatural.

(I hope this didn't come off as a caustic rant. I do not mean to offend and respect people on the basis and merit of who they are and not any quantifiable factors!)

In fairness, there are more students who are under thirty, mostly under26, in MFA programs and people ARE naturally selective about their companions and age is typcally a criteria. I found fairly harsh agiesm directed at me by the large body of the under 30 crowd. Yes, there were a few students my age who flaunted their middle age wealth and ate steak at fine restaurants while the younger students ate rama noodles and the older students refused to take the writings of the younger students seriously. Cutting to the chase here, ageism stinks, and I am not sure if there is anything that can be done to eliminate it. I was fortunate to make solid life long friends almost half my age who contnue to read my work. Good luck and hope you find a group of writers, no matter what age will encourage and challenge you.