Which Creative Writing MFA Produces the Most Critically-Acclaimed Writers?

Recently the Creative Writing MFA blog did some concentrated Google-ing, ruling that the Iowa Writers’ Workshop has produced more critically-acclaimed writers than any other writing program in the last five years.

The website took three different “best writers” lists from the last five years, indexing them against MFA program enrollment. Iowa’s celebrated program had 18 writers on the list. In contrast, Columbia University’s MFA Program had 12, University of California, Irvine had 5, and the University of Michigan had 4 graduates on the lists.

Here’s the methodology: “I decided to augment Granta’s [Best of Young American Novelists] list to see which programs were producing acclaimed writers and also to give future applicants a sense of what type of writers come out what programs. For the establishment opinion I picked the New York Times 100 Notable Books list and for the voice of the people I picked The Believer Book Awards Reader Survey.”

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