dorchester
Aug 7, 2008, 1:44 AM
Post #179 of 313
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Re: [Junior Maas] Fiction Acceptance Rates?
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Things seems more disturbing when you consider that most who do make it in appear to be rich white Ivy Leaguers...or folks born into heartwarming semi-poverty in another country who went to Ivy League schools on scholarship. One Iowa blogger even reports that (on the poetry side at least) they tend to admit the bored daughters of uber-rich, Rockefeller-type families -- because those daughters will one day marry, become even more bored, and bestow endowments.
I mean...Ack! 80%!? This makes the whittling down process look even worse... !
Once again, I feel the need to respond to some of the things being said about Iowa on this messageboard. First of all, the notion that Iowa only accepts Ivy Leaguers is absurd. I can remember a few students from Ivy League schools when I was there, but the vast majority were from state universities, small liberals arts colleges, and even a few community colleges. For years, in fact, Iowa was known for accepting students who hadn’t even graduated from college (I don’t think they can get away with that now). But the point is, all they care about there is how good a writer you are, regardless of where you went to school. In fact they’re probably the program that places the least weight on GPAs and GRE scores. As for the diversity issue, that’s equally absurd, and all you have to do is look at some of the important writers who have come out of there over the years: James Alan McPherson, Rita Dove, Sandra Cisneros, Bharti Mukherjee, Susan Power, Gish Jen, Abraham Verghese, Lan Samanthat Chang, or more recently, Yiyun Le, Sue Kwok Kim, Nam Le, ZZ Packer, etc. I could go on and on. The point is, if you’d actually ever spent a day there, you’d realize how ridiculous this type of statement was.
Anyway, every now and then I feel the need to respond to these types of statements, and I’ve been wondering recently why it is the Iowa seems to incur so much wrath. In Edward Delaney’s interview about his rankings in the Atlantic, he makes the point that “Iowa is everyone’s favorite piñata,” and this is of course the price you pay for being perceived by the general public as the best program in the country. In other words, people rarely take shots at other strong programs, like UVA or Cornell or Michigan, because they don’t feel that they need to degrade those programs in order to establish their own (or their program’s) superiority. And, of course, a part of me understands this. But what’s troubling to me is the way the program, and the students in the program, are so vilified and misrepresented. When I was there, the students were warm, generous supportive and kind. They also happened to be incredibly talented writers, but that was beside the point. They were, first and foremost, good people. Moreover, what people need to understand is that the students there, at least when I was there, care far less about Iowa’s famous reputation than it seems students at every other MFA program do. In fact, I would be hard pressed to remember one conversation in which anyone even talked about Iowa’s ranking at all, except to say that they were surprised they got in. I was even there when the famous 1997 US News rankings came out, and I don’t think anyone said more than two words about it, whereas I remember my friends at other programs getting extremely worked up about where their particular program fell on that list.
All of which is to say that while students from various other programs feel the need to degrade Iowa, the students at Iowa don’t feel the need to degrade them. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one negative post on these messageboards from an Iowa grad belittling another program. Mostly, you have good people like Seth, who, if anything, are championing other programs. And I’m sure if you asked the typical Iowa student what they thought of a program like, say, Michigan, they’d probably say “That’s a great program!” Not “That’s a great program, but not as good as ours.” Because, quite frankly, they don’t care. They’re not thinking about that or talking about that, in part, because there’s an understanding there (perhaps because of the famous legacy) that one has to be humble, that one can’t believe too much in the external significance of things, and that all that really matters is trying to do the best work you can do every day. And if there’s one reason why so many Iowa grads have actually had success it’s probably because this belief is so ingrained in them.
So why is it then that this incredibly cool, supportive environment, filled with nice, humble, hard-working writers, who are just as insecure and unsure of themselves as writers at any other program in the country, why is it then that this place incurs so much wrath? I think part of it is the top dog issue, but I think, more specifically, it relates to a kind of frustration, which is perfectly understandable. The students from other programs see their program getting better, increasing their financial aid, improving their faculty, etc., and yet, no matter how much their programs improve, they can’t seem to shake the public opinion that Iowa is still the most prestigious program in the country. And the problem is, it’s kind of a futile battle to fight. The fame and legacy of The Writers’ Workshop is just too ingrained in the public consciousness at this point. And I’m not talking about MFA students, or even writers, here. I’m talking about the general public. The Iowa program is simply a part of popular culture. It’s the one program that people who don’t know anything about MFA Programs know about. It’s the one program that’s written about the most, talked about the most, referenced the most, etc, and that’s just not something that people can control or reverse. Once something is part of the public consciousness, once a certain opinion is formed and reinforced by the media, it becomes extremely hard to compete with, and so I think that’s where some of this frustration comes from. Iowa begins to represent some sort of giant machine that can’t be stopped, and so the only thing people can do is take pot shots at it. And of course the fact that so many of its graduates continue to have success only fuels this resentment
But what I want to express to people here is that neither the students, nor the Iowa Writers Workshop itself, are doing anything to perpetuate this public opinion. Just look at the Iowa website compared to other programs’ websites. Considering all of the famous alumni and past faculty and honors they could list, it’s pretty amazing how humble and understated their website is. But that’s the attitude there. That’s Iowa. They’re not interested in posting flashy advertisements in Poets & Writers or The Writer’s Chronicle or others trade magazines, like so many other programs do. They’re not even interested in attracting more applicants. In fact, when I was there, they actually sent out a list of all the other MFA programs out there as a way of discouraging applicants from only applying to Iowa and also as a way of helping those other programs grow.
So, what I’m saying to the people who feel the need to attack Iowa is “let it go.” What you’re attacking is an idea, a public opinion, and one that can’t be easily reversed. And the thing is, the students at Iowa aren’t even invested in this public opinion, at least they weren’t when I was there, so why should you be? They aren’t walking around feeling superior to you, so why should feel the need to cast dispersions on them or their program? The only thing you should be focusing on is your own work and the quality of it, because, in the long run, that all that really matters. That’s the main thing—probably the most important thing—I actually learned at Iowa.
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