Questions to Ask an MFA Program
Questions for applicants and admitted students in creative writing or visual art to put to a program director, the faculty and the students already there. The list starts with money, meaning the funding and the teaching asked for in return, then moves through how workshop or critique runs, which faculty are really around, the week, the studio and the class you would join, the terms of a low-residency program, and the thesis and what graduates do afterward. The notes say what a straight answer contains, which replies should make you ask again, and who else to check it with.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Funding
Is every admitted student fully funded, and on the same terms?
Why ask it
"Fully funded" can mean a tuition waiver and a stipend for the whole class, or a few fellowships with everyone else paying. A good answer is one sentence with a number of years in it. If the money comes in tiers, ask how the tiers are decided and whether they are handed out again each year, because competing with your own workshop for a stipend changes the room.
What do I do in return for the funding: how many classes a term, and which ones?
Why ask it
The teaching load is the price of the money, so get it as sections per term and students per section. One small section can leave you a writing or studio week, while two full ones with all the grading may not. Ask whether you would run the class yourself or assist someone else's.
After fees and health insurance, what is left of the stipend each month, and does it cover rent here?
Why ask it
Do the subtraction with the office: the stipend, less the fees a waiver leaves out, less the insurance premium if students pay one. Then set what is left beside a rent figure from a current student. "People make it work" with no number attached is the worrying reply, and since the charges differ from school to school, have each one listed.
Does the funding stay the same every year of the degree, and what would cause it to be reduced or taken away?
Why ask it
You are listening for "renewed as long as you are in good standing" and a plain definition of good standing. "Depending on the budget" needs one follow-up: has a class already in the program ever had its funding cut?
For someone with no funding, what does the whole degree cost, and how many current students are paying that?
Why ask it
Ask for one total: tuition for every term, fees, materials and rent for the length of the degree, not a price per credit. Settle before the conversation how much debt two or three years of time is worth to you, because the number is easier to wave away once you have seen the studios. If most of the class is funded and a few people pay in full, ask how those few are chosen.
Do first-year students teach, or is one year kept free of it?
Why ask it
Some programs keep the first or the final year clear as fellowship time, and a thesis year without grading is worth more than it sounds. If you would teach in your first term, find out what training happens before you walk into the classroom and who you call when a class goes wrong.
Is there any pay over the summer, and what do students do for money when classes are not running?
Why ask it
A stipend may be paid only across the teaching months, which leaves a gap each year that is easy to miss on a visit day. Good answers name summer teaching, fellowships or program jobs and say how many students get them. If the answer is that people leave town and find work, budget for that.
Would I ever teach creative writing or a studio class, or only the introductory courses?
Why ask it
If you hope to teach afterward, one course in your own field is likely to say more to a hiring committee than several terms of the required first-year class. Ask how many students get one and how they are picked. A place where it goes to two people a year is telling you it is a prize, not part of the degree.
Are there ways to earn the stipend other than classroom teaching, such as work on the magazine, the press or the gallery?
Why ask it
Editorial, gallery and writing-center posts suit people who dread the classroom, and they teach a different trade: reading submissions or hanging a show is how you learn the way work gets chosen. Ask how many hours they take beside a teaching post, since a job described as lighter is sometimes just less visible.
What money is there beyond the stipend, for materials, travel, a residency or research toward a book?
Why ask it
For a sculptor or a photographer, materials and fabrication can eat a real share of a stipend, so ask what a recent thesis show cost its maker out of pocket. For writers the useful version is whether there is help with a research trip or a summer conference. Small grants that most people receive count for more than one large award.
If another program has offered me more, is there any room to look at this offer again?
Why ask it
Ask once, politely, with the other offer in hand and before the reply deadline. Some programs fund every student identically on principle and will say no, and that refusal is a decent sign of how the class is treated. If the answer is yes, get the new terms in writing.
Workshop
How does a workshop or critique run here: who speaks first, and does the person whose work is up get to talk?
Why ask it
In some rooms the maker stays silent until the end, and in others they open by saying what they want to hear about. Neither is wrong, but you will sit in that format for years, so picture your own work on the table. Follow up by asking what the instructor does when the discussion turns into an argument about taste.
How many people are in a workshop, and how often would my own work come up in a term?
Why ask it
Do the arithmetic while they answer: the weeks in a term, times the pieces discussed in a session, divided by the people in the room. If that comes to fewer than two or three turns each, ask where else your pages or pieces get a close reading.
Can I sit in on a workshop or a critique when I visit?
Why ask it
Nothing a director says replaces an hour in the room. Watch how the quietest person is treated, and whether the comments are about the work in front of them or the work the speaker would have made. A program that says no should have a reason, such as protecting the student being discussed that day.
Am I admitted to one genre or medium and expected to stay in it, or can I work across them?
Why ask it
A poet who wants a fiction workshop and a painter drifting toward video both need this answered before they accept. "Yes, with permission" is not a yes until you know how often permission is given, so ask how many people in the program are working outside the genre or medium they were admitted in.
What do students take besides workshop, and how much of it is required?
Why ask it
Literature seminars, craft classes, art history and theory can fill half a schedule or almost none of it. Count the reading and the papers along with the class hours. Some people want a degree that makes them read widely and others came for uninterrupted time, so the right answer depends on which you are.
Do I choose whose workshop I take each term, and how different are the instructors from one another?
Why ask it
Where you get a choice, ask how places are given out when one teacher is everybody's first pick. Where you do not, the order you meet the faculty in is fixed for you, and it is fair to ask who teaches the first-year room.
Outside workshop, how much one-on-one time is there with faculty: conferences, tutorials or studio visits?
Why ask it
In a studio program the individual visit is often where much of the teaching happens, so ask how many you can count on in a term and whether you have to chase them. Writers should ask whether an instructor meets each student after their piece has been discussed. "As often as you like" tends to mean as often as you ask, which favors whoever is least shy.
What kinds of work is the program less able to support?
Why ask it
Name your own: genre fiction, writing for young readers, hybrid forms, performance, digital or socially engaged work. The best reply is an honest "we have nobody for that" or the name of a student doing it now. Without one reader or viewer who knows your tradition, critiques go on explaining the form instead of the piece.
What has the program done when a workshop went badly, say when comments turned personal or one student was singled out?
Why ask it
A good reply describes something that was done: ground rules set on the first day, an instructor who stopped a session, a director who stepped in. "That does not happen here" is the reply to worry about. Find out too who a student would go to, and whether that is someone other than the instructor of the workshop in question.
Are there end-of-term or end-of-year reviews in front of the whole faculty, and what depends on them?
Why ask it
Mostly a question for studio programs, where a review can decide whether you continue. Ask what happens to someone who does not pass and when that last occurred. If nothing depends on it, ask what students get from it that a regular critique does not give them.
Faculty
Which faculty will be teaching here, in person, during the years I would attend?
Why ask it
A faculty page lists people on leave, people who have retired into a title and people who teach one course a year. Ask for next year's schedule by name. If the person you applied to work with is away in your first year, ask whether they will be back in time to advise your thesis.
Do the faculty live in town, or do they come in only on the days they teach?
Why ask it
A teacher who travels in for two days can be fully present in the seminar and hard to find for anything else. Ask whether faculty turn up at student readings and openings, and whether a meeting outside class has to fit into those same two days. Commuting faculty are not a flaw where the schedule has been built around them.
How many thesis students does each faculty member take, and what happens when several people want the same one?
Why ask it
The well-known name is usually everyone's first choice, and somebody ends up with their second. A fair system, such as a cap and a stated way of choosing, is better news than "it works itself out". Ask what share of last year's class worked with the person they asked for.
How much of the teaching is done by permanent faculty, and how much by visitors here for a term or a year?
Why ask it
Visitors bring fresh eyes and are gone before your thesis is due. A program that leans on them can be exciting and thin at once. Think about who will still be at the school to write you a letter of recommendation five years from now.
Which writers or artists are visiting this year, and what do students get from a visit beyond the reading or the lecture?
Why ask it
A famous name at a podium does little for you. A manuscript conference, a studio visit or a dinner with eight students does. Ask how those slots are shared out, and whether first-years get any.
Do faculty help with the professional side, such as where to send work, how to approach agents or galleries, and how to apply for residencies?
Why ask it
Some programs keep the market out of the degree on principle. That is a position worth knowing before you arrive, not after. Where help exists it has a shape you can describe: a seminar on publishing or professional practice, visits from editors or curators, a teacher who reads query letters.
How wide is the range of taste on the faculty, and whose work sits furthest from the others'?
Why ask it
Read or look at their recent work before you ask, so that you can test the answer against what you saw. One shared aesthetic is fine if it is yours. If it is not, find out who in the building would defend what you are doing.
What in my writing sample or portfolio made you want me in the program?
Why ask it
For an admitted student, and for a faculty member, not the director. Someone who remembers a particular page or piece has read you closely and may be your advisor. General praise means the committee as a whole admitted you, which is fine, but keep looking for your reader.
Daily life
In an ordinary week, how many hours do students have for their own work once classes and teaching are counted?
Why ask it
Ask a second-year to walk you through last week, day by day. Time is the main thing the degree sells, and a schedule that leaves only evenings is a part-time arrangement whatever the brochure calls it.
Does every student get a private studio, how large is it, and when can I get into the building?
Why ask it
Ask to see a first-year's studio, not the best one on the floor. Check access at night and over breaks, ventilation for the materials you use, and whether you keep the space through the summer. Shared or assigned-by-lottery space is not a deal-breaker, but you should hear about it before you arrive.
What shops, labs and equipment are there, and how do I get time on them?
Why ask it
A kiln, a darkroom or a wood shop on the list is not the same as time in it. Ask who has priority when undergraduate classes are running, whether a technician is on hand, and what use and materials fees add up to over a year.
How many people are admitted each year, and how are they split across genres or media?
Why ask it
These are your readers and studio neighbors for the length of the degree. In a group of four, one difficult person is a quarter of every discussion. In a group of twenty you may wait a long time for attention. Ask how many are in your own genre or medium, since that number matters more than the total.
Who is in the current classes: how old are they, what were they doing before, and how many came straight from college?
Why ask it
Most of the comments on your work will come from these people, not from the faculty, so their range matters to what you make. If you would be the oldest in the room, the only parent, or the only one working from your background, ask how that went for the last person in that seat. A class that is all alike tends to hand back the same note several times.
Is there anything students here compete with each other for?
Why ask it
Fellowships, the good teaching assignments, a prize, a spot in a show: any of these changes how frank people are about each other's work. Where there is a ranking of any kind, ask who does the ranking, how often, and whether students see the result.
What is there outside the program: readings, galleries, presses, working artists and writers in town?
Why ask it
Ask how often people from outside come through the studios or the reading series, and whether students show or read anywhere off campus. A quiet town with cheap rent buys time, and a big city buys contact. Know which one you are short of.
Low-residency
How do the residencies work: how long, how often, and where?
Why ask it
Get the dates for the coming year if they exist, because you will be asking an employer or a family for that time. Find out what happens if you have to miss one. A program with a clear make-up rule has dealt with real lives before.
What do the residencies cost on top of tuition, counting travel, housing and meals?
Why ask it
Add the answer to the tuition figure yourself, because the brochure may not. Ask what aid low-residency students can get, since it is often set up differently from a full-time program's funding, and have them explain how it works there.
Between residencies, how much work do I send my mentor, how often, and what comes back?
Why ask it
This exchange is the whole program for most of the year. A solid answer has a schedule in it, a length for each submission and a promised turnaround for a written response. Ask whether you can see a sample response letter with the names removed.
How is my mentor chosen each term, and do I get a say?
Why ask it
Working with a new person every term gives you range, and staying with one gives you depth, so ask which the program favors and whether you can request someone. Ask too how many students a mentor carries at once, since that sets how long each response to you can be.
How many hours a week do students with full-time jobs or children put in, and how do they manage it?
Why ask it
The program's estimate is a starting point. A graduate who had a job like yours can give you the real figure and say which months were hardest. If nobody can name a student in your situation, ask why not.
How do low-residency students stay in touch with each other between residencies?
Why ask it
At a distance, the group does not form by itself. Listen for something organized, such as online workshops, reading groups or regional meetups, and for whether students or the program set it up. Graduates who still trade work years later are the best evidence that it held.
Can I take a term off and come back, and what does that do to the cost and to my aid?
Why ask it
Many people choose this format because of a job or a family, and either can make a term impossible at short notice. A clear answer covers how long you may be away, whether you rejoin your own class or the one behind it, and what happens to tuition already paid. Rules on aid during a break differ by school and by lender, so have the office explain theirs.
Thesis and after
What exactly is the thesis, and who has to approve it?
Why ask it
Writers should ask for a page count and whether it must be one book-length work. Artists should ask whether a written paper goes with the exhibition and how long it is. Then ask whether there is a defense, who sits on it, and whether anyone has been sent back to revise.
Is this a two-year or a three-year degree, and do people leave with a finished manuscript or body of work?
Why ask it
Where there is a year beyond the coursework, it tends to be the one in which a manuscript or a body of work gets finished, so ask whether it is funded on the same terms as the others. For a shorter program, ask how much of the thesis students are expected to arrive with, and how many go on working on it after they have the degree.
In the thesis year, how often does the advisor read the whole manuscript or come to the studio?
Why ask it
A promise of regular meetings means little until someone gives you a number. Two full readings with written comments make a different final year from a signature at the end. Ask how long a complete draft takes to come back, since that decides how many rounds fit before the deadline.
What happens to the thesis in public: an exhibition, a reading, a catalog, and who is invited?
Why ask it
For artists the details are whether the show is solo or group, where it hangs, and whether curators and critics from outside the school are brought in. Writers can ask whether agents or editors ever visit. Then ask who came last year from outside the school, which separates an event with an audience from one held for families.
What have the graduates of the last five years done since they left: books, shows, jobs?
Why ask it
Ask for the list and not the highlights. Every program has one graduate it mentions first. What you need is the middle of a class three years out, set beside what you hope to be doing yourself.
Of the graduates who wanted to teach at a college, how many are doing it, and in what kind of post?
Why ask it
Press for the kind: full-time, part-time, paid by the course. "Our alumni teach all over" covers all three. Whether the degree alone is enough for the jobs you have in mind varies by country and by institution, so check with a department you would want to work in, not only with this one.
What do graduates who are not teaching do for a living?
Why ask it
Publishing, arts organizations, design, fabrication, or something unrelated that pays for the work: a program that can list these jobs has kept track of its graduates. One that changes the subject may only be counting the professors. Ask whether any of those graduates come back to talk to current students.
What does the program do for people in their last term and the year after they leave?
Why ask it
Look for things with dates attached: a post-graduate fellowship, a year of studio or library access, an alumni reading, letters written on time. If the answer is the alumni newsletter, plan to build that bridge yourself.
Has anyone left before finishing in the last few years, and what was the reason?
Why ask it
One person leaving for a job or a family reason says nothing. Several leaving over money or over one instructor is a pattern. If the answer is that nobody has, ask how many took longer than planned, which is the quieter form of the same thing.
If I asked your second-years what they would change about the program, what would they say?
Why ask it
Ask the director first, then ask the second-years. A director who predicts the complaint is listening to students, and may already be fixing it. A wide gap between the two versions is worth more than either answer.
Can you put me in touch with a current student and a recent graduate in my own genre or medium?
Why ask it
Take your funding and workshop questions to them again, word for word, and compare. If the program can only offer its chosen ambassadors, look up a graduate yourself and write to them. A short, specific note often gets an answer.
How to get straight answers from an MFA program
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you ask
Director, faculty or students: who to ask what
The director or coordinator knows the money: stipends, teaching assignments, fees and how renewal works. Faculty know how they run a room and whether they will be around. Current students know what a week is like, what the stipend really covers and which promises held. Ask a faculty member about fee waivers, or a director what a Tuesday is like, and you get a well-meant guess.
Read what is already published
The handbook, the funding page and the course list answer a fair share of this list before you speak to anyone. Arrive with what you could not find, or with something that did not add up: "The site says three years of funding. Is the third year on the same terms?" shows you did the reading and gets a sharper reply.
Read or look at the faculty's recent work
You are choosing readers and critics for two or three years, so know what they make now, not what made their names. It also turns a general question into a specific one. Asking a painter how they would respond to work as different from theirs as yours is tells you more than asking about their teaching philosophy.
Know what you need the degree for
Time to finish a book, a studio and a shop, a teaching record, a circle of peers: programs are strong in different ones. Rank them for yourself before you make any calls. Then put Funding and Daily life first if time is the point, and Thesis and after first if you need a job from it.
Pick eight or ten, not the whole list
A visit day or a call with a director gives you perhaps twenty minutes of real questions. Take two from each group that applies to you, and skip Low-residency unless that is the format you are considering. The ones that could change your decision go first.
Asking, before and after an offer
Before you apply, keep it short
An email to the program coordinator with two or three factual questions about funding and teaching is normal and will usually be answered. Detailed questions for faculty are better kept until you have an offer. They have many applicants and no reason yet to spend an hour on one.
After an offer, ask everything
Once you are admitted the program is recruiting you, and the weeks before the reply deadline are when it is most willing to talk. Ask for a call with the director, a faculty member in your genre or medium and at least two students. This is also the time for the questions about money, including whether an offer can be improved.
Get the money in writing
Stipend amount, number of years, teaching load, fee waivers and health coverage should all appear in the offer letter. If one is missing, write to the office and ask for it by email. A figure said aloud at a visit day may have changed by the time you arrive, and a program office gets this request every admissions season.
Ask students without faculty in the room
Students are more candid at a coffee or on a call than on a panel with the director sitting beside them. Ask a first-year and someone near the end, since the first knows what arriving is like and the second knows what the thesis year costs. Offer to keep what they say to yourself, and do.
Ask for last year, not for policy
"How does workshop feedback work?" gets the handbook. "Tell me about a critique last year that went wrong" gets an account with people in it. Nearly everything under Workshop and Faculty can be turned this way: who taught the first-year workshop last fall, how many studio visits a student had last term.
Reading the answers
Numbers and names over adjectives
"Generous funding" and "close mentorship" could describe any program. A stipend figure, a class size, a number of studio visits a term and the names of the people teaching next year are answers. If the reply is an adjective, your next question is "how much?" or "who?".
Compare the director's version with the students'
Teaching load, living costs and how often faculty are around are worth asking about twice, once of the director and once of a student. Agreement on those three is good reason to believe the answers you had no way to check. Where the two part ways, plan around what the student said, since that is the program as it is lived.
Put the offers side by side
For each program write down the stipend after fees, the rent a student quoted you, the sections taught per term and the hours left in a week for your own work. The bigger check can turn out to be the worse offer once a higher rent and a second section of teaching are set against it. The comparison is rarely obvious until it is on one page.
Notice how the hard questions land
A director who answers a question about attrition or a bad workshop plainly is showing you how the program handles trouble. One who gets short with an admitted student over a fair question about money will not be easier to deal with once you are enrolled.
Mistakes to avoid
Choosing for one famous name
The writer or artist you admire may be on leave, may teach one seminar a year or may take two thesis students from a class of twelve. Ask the Faculty questions about that person in particular, and make sure there is a second person you would be glad to work with.
Treating the visit day as evidence
A visit day is planned, and the students you meet were invited to it. It is useful for seeing the studios and sitting in on a class. For everything else, rely on the conversations you arrange yourself.
Being too polite to ask about money
Applicants in the arts often feel that asking about stipends and debt marks them as less serious about the work. Directors hear these questions every year. Whoever skips them finds out the answers in the first month, when it is too late to choose differently.
Asking only whether, never how often
Most programs can truthfully say yes to "can students teach a workshop", "can I work across genres" or "do agents and curators visit". The useful answer is how many students that happened for last year. A yes that applies to one person in ten is closer to a no.