How I Didn't Get in to Grad School

And still ended up where I wanted to be

Hi Friends,

Story time!

Way back in 2001, I was about to graduate from college. I was convinced I was going to marry my college boyfriend (lol) and I was trying to figure out how to make what I wanted to happen (marriage, an MFA in fiction writing) work with what he wanted to happen (med school anywhere that would have him). He had no interest in making what he wanted work with what I wanted (sign #1 we were not meant to be). I don’t really blame him. We were young. He wanted what he wanted.

I wanted to go to school for writing. Deep down I knew I wanted it. I don’t remember ever wanting to be anything else but a writer and I knew going to a writing program would give me a few years of time and space to write. I also knew I didn’t want to go deep into debt for it. I wasn’t going to make a lot of money as a teacher or professor or as (ha) a full-time writer, so I didn’t apply to big name programs. I wanted to stay in the South, too, which was home, broadly speaking. That boy applied where he wanted to go and I applied where I thought I could A: get in and B: afford and there wasn’t a single overlap.

And I waited. And waited. I applied to maybe 5 places. The rejections came in. One school lost my application and I didn’t even bother working it out. And one school never even responded.

I was pretty depressed about it but I’m not sure I even told any one. My pride was too strong. As that humid summer after graduation rolled on, with August a big blank nothing, I got a job. A sanity saving, career changing job. I’d been interning and then working part time at the University Press of Florida for a few years, and they had an editorial assistant job opening, and I took it. I had no choice, but it was also the perfect thing. Book related. A real job. A grown up job with a title and a business card and everything. With people I’d known for years. It was there I started reading Publishers Marketplace and learned about literary agents. It was there I got to sit in on marketing and editorial meetings, to see what they did. I got to watch manuscripts turn into books. Even if they were academic books, and not the novels I wanted to work on myself, it didn’t matter. They’re all made basically the same way. That job is why I am where I am today. It was actual publishing experience on my resume when I applied to jobs in New York City. It was not a consolation. It was a salvation.

And then in December of that same year, something funny happened. I got a letter in the mail telling me I had been accepted into the University of Southern Mississippi’s creative writing program on a full ride. For the fall. The fall that had already passed. I was so confused. Everyone was. I called the offices and they scratched their heads right along with me. Clerical error? Fate? Who knows. I asked if I could come the next fall, to start fresh. They said yes. Do I still get the money? I asked. Yes, they said. I had gotten into grad school after all. The universe just needed me to do some other things first.

I worked for a year full time at the Press, and then packed all my stuff and moved to Hattiesburg. There, I wrote and wrote and read and read and learned even more about manuscripts and publishing and editing. After a few semesters, though, I felt like I was done. Maybe grad school wasn’t actually what I wanted after all. I wanted to be a grown up again, not a student. I wanted to work on books, not talk about them. (It might have been a sign that I was the one in workshop asking but what are you going to DO with this story? Who is going to publish it?) I arranged to graduate early, wrote my thesis, and then packed my stuff and moved to Brooklyn. And the rest is history.

I’m very lucky all this worked out. I had family to pay for my (very cheap) undergrad degree, and help me a little with moving to grad school. I was safe and healthy enough to take the time to figure out what I wanted. I had friends to stay with in New York while I looked for a job and an apartment. I would not be here with out that privileged and support. It still took more than 10 years to pay off the meager loans I took out to live for 18 months in Hattiesburg, where my rent for a huge one bedroom apartment all to myself with a washer and dryer cost about $350/mo or so. But overall I have so little to complain about. I got what I wanted, even though it didn’t happen the way I thought it would.

When I let go of the plan, when I opened myself up to the opportunities in front of me, a new plan emerged. I would prefer everything went according to the plan I set out in my head, but it very rarely does. If what you’re doing isn’t going according to plan, let go of it for a bit. Loosen the reins. See what opportunities are in front of you and see where they may lead. You might just be surprised. And you might get where you’re going in the end anyway.

Oh, and that boy? He didn’t get into med school either, and we dated for a whole ‘nother year and then more long distance. We broke up, and he met his now-wife in the airport on the way home from visiting me. Seriously. You absolutely never know what’s going to work and what’s going to work out even better.

Stay safe and well, friends. Take all the precautions you can and we might find ourselves in the home stretch. Wear a mask. Get a shot.

OXOXOX,
Kate