First off, Bighark is right, of course—you want to send your best work, period. And it sounds like you have very good reason to tell your stories in first person. No one is going to think “oh no, two stories in first person. . . now this person can’t be a good writer.” Plenty of people who submit only first person stories are going to get into great schools.

I said what I did on my blog because the third person past allows the writer to do things he or she can’t do in first (and vice versa), and I think that applicants should think about that. Over the past year at school I have seen many stories originally drafted in first person that turned out to work better when revised into third at the suggestion of a professor.

Additionally, I have heard that the majority of stories submitted with applications are first person—many beginning with the word “I”. It’s possible that it could pay off to submit something different than that.

Don’t second-guess your manuscript. Like I said in my blog post, there are no rules, and I’m a beginning writer, too. I just wanted to share what I’ve learned over the past year--and part of that is that many stories work better in third and lots of application stories start with "I." Didn’t mean for it to be controversial.

This seems very interesting about Our Stories. Maybe I'll try that, but the problem is they charge 135 dollars for one story, not 35, as said above, which is cheap, I know, compared to other places you can go for a workshop, but still, for me it is kind of impossible right now...

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They actually do have a $35 package (thank god! because otherwise I'd never be able to afford it), it's just more hidden, at the bottom of this page: http://ourstories.us/...shops/workshops.html Scroll all the way down. It only includes one workshop, so you don't get to keep sending it back and forth, but that's all I can afford right now. I'll let you know how mine goes!

As far as the third person debate, I can see the merits of sending in something different, but I would not stress out about it *at all* if your stories aren't. I'm applying for creative nonfiction, so it's a different ballgame, but I would imagine that just whipping out a new story or re-imagining an older first person story into third person would be a) so much more work and b) possibly detrimental.

I got it back yesterday (Monday), so that was less than a week turnaround (I sent it on Wednesday). She was extremely helpful and her comments were very constructive-- lots of work for me to do!

As it was only $35, I would recommend Our Stories service to others.

12,000 words is a lot, Pedro. Most schools ask for about 30 pages, which is half of that. Does your 12,900 represent a single story or a couple of different pieces?

I would counsel you to submit a smaller sample if it's possible. Use two stories instead of four. Submit a smaller novel excerpt rather than a longer one.

This isn't a strict interpretation of the rules issue as much as application strategy. Basically, two strong stories > two strong stories + 1 OK story.

Places like Cornell and Iowa and some others have some generous limits in terms of writing sample size, but be careful not to hang yourself with the extra rope.

Apart from that, I think you're ok if you're within a few pages of the guideline. Submitting 34 pages on a 30-page limit, for example, won't disqualify you or upset anybody terribly much. Submitting 45 pages on 30-page limit, on the other hand, is just rude.

In your case, going approxmately four pages over a 60-page limit is not a big deal. Still, you really, really should cut that down by half if it's possible.

it would be great to read a writing sample from an accepted applicant just to get some feel for how it compares to my work. Does anyone know where I can find such a writing sample?