How to Apply
Deadline is January 2nd!
Each year, more than 300 applicants will seek the 40 positions in our MFA Creative Writing program (15
each in fiction and poetry, up to 10 in nonfiction). The most
important factor in gaining admittance is
portfolio of original writing. Sometimes work of significant merit will
not gain an admission because the writing simply does not
fit with the kind of work our faculty members are doing themselves
and, therefore, are best prepared to teach. With this in mind,
here are the basic steps for applying to the program:
Read the faculty's work before you apply.
You can find links to detailed biographies and lists of publications
on our faculty page. Compare our faculty to those at other
programs and ask yourself which writers you would most like
to have help you develop your craft.
Plan ahead.
The deadline for applying is January 2nd.
You should send all application materials—application, transcripts, letters of recommendation, writing sample, and goal statement—directly to the Graduate
Admissions Office:
Graduate Admissions Processing Center
Mail Stop 2D2
George Mason University
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
Prepare your portfolio and goal statement.
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Your portfolio should consist of at least two complete
short stories if you are a fiction applicant, or, if you
are applying in nonfiction, at least two complete essays
or the equivalent (up to 50 pages), and if you are applying
in poetry, up to 10 pages of poems.
-
Applicants in poetry are welcome to submit long poems
or shorter poems up to the requested 10 pages.
Put no more than one poem on a page, with adequate margins and a readable font. Be sure your name is on every page and that pages are numbered and stapled together. Provide a table of contents that includes page numbers. You want to make it easy for us to find a poem quickly during discussion of your work. Applicant portfolios
in fiction may contain novels or novellas as well as the two short stories. The reason for requesting stories is to ensure a fair consideration and because most workshops are based on stories. A fiction applicant's portfolio
should include more than one work in order to represent
the breadth of his or her abilities. Similarly,
a nonfiction portfolio may contain longer essays, biographies
or autobiographies, but applicants should submit
more than one work.
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Portfolios should be single-sided, and fiction and nonfiction
portfolios should be double-spaced.
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Your goals statement (no more than 750 words) should include an introduction of yourself as well as an insightful explanation of why you want to study the writing of poetry, fiction, or nonfiction. This is a critical portion of your application package, and one of our main sources of information about you.
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TA applicants may be asked to supply an analytical writing sample with their applications.
Complete a Graduate Application.
Like most universities, when you apply for Mason's MFA
program, you must also apply for admission as a graduate student.
Failure to complete this application can delay acceptance.
Forward your completed Graduate Application, portfolio, nonfiction
writing sample, and statement of purpose to the Admissions
Office by the appropriate deadline. GRE/standardized-test
scores are not required for admission to the Graduate Creative
Writing Program.
Obtain two letters of recommendation and have all undergraduate
and graduate transcripts sent to the admissions office.
Your two letters of recommendation should come from current
or former professors who can comment on your work. Our Graduate
Application contains a form for these recommendations, but
faculty letterhead is also acceptable. We will also need transcripts
from all your undergraduate and graduate course work.
(Optional) Complete a Graduate Teaching Assistantship Application.
Each year we have four or five Graduate Teaching Assistantships
open in fiction and poetry, and one or two in nonfiction. First-year Teaching
Assistants (TAs) earn a stipend of about $10,000 (more with
a master's already), plus their tuition is covered by the
Writing Program. TAs take pedagogical courses to prepare them
to teach composition and literature, and once they have taught
in both those fields, they are eligible to teach our introductory
and intermediate undergraduate creative writing courses. First-year
TAs work 15 hours each week in the on-campus writing tutorial
center. Second- and third-year TAs teach their own sections
of composition or literature, writing their own syllabuses,
choosing their own texts, etc. Individuals who do not receive
a TA in the first year of their studies may apply in subsequent
years. Persons who receive a TA appointment in their first
year are assumed to have it through the full three years required
to complete the program. For more details, download our Graduate
Teaching Assistantship Application, which is in a Microsoft
Word 6.0 format.
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