MFA PROGRAMS.
Funding first, deadlines second — the two facts that decide an application list.
The first question about any MFA program is what it costs, and the honest answer is buried more often than posted. These listings lead with funding and deadlines, then everything else — the order in which the decision actually gets made.
Application deadlines cluster in December and January. The index watches them the rest of the year, so the program that quietly moved its date doesn't cost you an application season.
Cornell MFA
mfa programSmall, fully funded two-year MFA in fiction or poetry at Cornell, taught by a faculty that includes Ishion Hutchinson, Valzhyna Mort, NoViolet Bulawayo, and J. Robert Lennon, with close ties to the department's literary magazine EPOCH.
Helen Zell Writers' Program (Michigan)
mfa programA fully funded two-year MFA in fiction or poetry at the University of Michigan's English Department, offering a funded post-graduate fellowship year and named for donor Helen Zell.
Iowa Writers' Workshop
mfa programThe oldest and most famous MFA program in the country; two-year funded residency in Iowa City.
NYU Creative Writing Program
mfa programNYU's MFA program in Greenwich Village, built around a public reading series, the journal Washington Square Review, and a faculty and alumni list dense with major prizewinners.
Syracuse MFA
mfa programFully funded three-year MFA in fiction and poetry, known for a small, highly selective cohort and a faculty list that has included Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff, Mary Karr, and George Saunders.
UMass Amherst MFA
mfa programOne of the oldest MFA programs in the country: a three-year, funded MFA for poets and fiction writers in the Pioneer Valley, built around workshops and completion of a book-length manuscript.
University of Arkansas MFA
mfa programFour-year MFA in Fayetteville with deep poetry and translation tracks — one of the longest apprenticeships available.
University of Houston CWP
mfa programHouston's dual MFA/PhD Creative Writing Program, founded in 1979 by Donald Barthelme and Cynthia Macdonald, known for pairing rigorous literary study with a strong poetry workshop tradition.
Vanderbilt MFA
mfa programFully funded three-year MFA in Nashville admitting six poets and six fiction writers per year, for a total cohort of eighteen students.
Washington University in St. Louis MFA
mfa programFully funded two-year MFA program in creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis, housed in the English department; program page currently returns a 404, so verify current details via the university site.