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Sure, especially if the journals are well known. I would send a brief, professional e-mail notifying them of your upcoming publications and attach an updated CV. Most secretaries who handle the applications will be more than happy to print it off and replace the old one in your file. Also mention that you'd be willing to mail it to save them the cost of paper. Too, unless they've already begun the reading process, the committee members will never know about it... so don't worry about it from that angle.

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I agree, in principle.

The bottom line regarding publications, in my opinion:

A.) If you've placed work in a major journal (Ploughshares, AGNI, Paris Review, Tin House, etc.) it might give the committee members a reason to take a closer look at your sample -- if, at first glance, it doesn't blow them away. Yes, they claim to give each sample the same amount of attention. But think of it from their perspective, in practical terms. Some of these people have hundreds of submissions to go through. They're looking to weed the stack down to a few dozen promising candidates as quickly as possible (without being careless) and spend the majority of their time closely considering those. You want to be in that second stack.

Note, however, that I didn't say a major publication will push your application over the top. Good journals publish bad work all the time. The committee members will know this. But what it can do is keep you in the game a little longer.

What a publication credit will not do (and I think this is the primary fear of most applicants) is elevate a good sample that happens to be published above a great one that isn't. In the end, as has been said here ad nauseam, it's all about the writing.

B.) If you've placed work in a lesser-known journal, the fact that you've published at all indicates to the committee members that you're at least serious enough about your work to submit. That you have a work ethic, that writing isn't just a hobby for you, etc. They'll know you've likely been rejected five to ten times more often than accepted. They'll know this because they're writers, too, and they've been in the same boat (if they aren't still). Perseverance is a major asset in this profession, perhaps even (at the risk of sounding too Tony Robbinsy) the most important one. "A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit." Richard Bach said that. A smart dude.

C.) If you don't have any publications yet, don't worry about it. Because in the end it's all about the writing anyway.

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Sure, it could help. It certainly won't hinder. Don't lose sleep over it, though, because... wait for it... it's all about the writing. : )

-I

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Not under any circumstances? Wow, strong statement. While I agree it likely won't make much of a difference (as I noted above), it certainly won't hurt.

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I understand your line of thinking, but I disagree: there's a significant difference between the two. With a magazine, you're selling only the piece of writing you've submitted. With an MFA program, you're also selling yourself, to a degree (and publication credits are a part of that -- albeit a small one). Also, e-mail accounts at journals are often checked by multiple people (i.e. not only office assistants, but editors and assistant editors as well), meaning that a note like that -- even if it mattered, which it wouldn't, in that case -- might be read by one of the higher-ups. This is not the case with the people preparing your MFA file. No one who will be reading your sample will know about the late addition to your CV.

And yes, it might take up a little of a grad assistant's time. But this is the next 2-3 years of your life. It's relevant to your application, and they know this.

(Note: I'd only recommend this for major publications. You should not -- and I'll use "under any circumstances" here -- send a note to correct a few typos, fix a grammatical mistake or replace a stanza/passage you've since rewritten.)

-I


(This post was edited by IgnatiusJ on Dec 9, 2009, 10:18 AM)