<p>I went to Iowa as well. It’s the only writing program I’ve been to, so I can’t compare it to others, but I can say that my experience there was phenomenal. Their program has a really nice balance between downtime and class time. Our lunch break was over two hours long, so we could spend it exploring Iowa City or doing work for class. After 4, we had the rest of the night free, but there were always at least two or three options for activities to do. So we could spend the evenings doing work, or we could go to a poetry reading, or we could take talk to the counselors and arrange a trip to somewhere that we wouldn’t be able to get by foot. The people running the program were willing to coordinate trips to anywhere we wanted to go, and everyone was not only nice and fun, but also smart–Everyone was a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.</p>
<p>As far as the education part goes, I feel that my writing got so much better during those weeks. Every class liked to swear that their class was the best one, and we also had opportunities to work with other teachers. And since our counselors were writers as well, we could talk to them about writing too.</p>
<p>And Iowa City itself was great. So many good places to eat and shop, and so many great bookstores, both with new books and used. It has a great vibe to it.</p>
<p>So @dke, I would recommend your daughter look into the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio. We did a lot of writing and learned a lot, but we never felt like we were being suffocated by work. The hardest part was sometimes having to choose staying at home to read a workshop piece instead of taking part in one of the many things going on that night. But that’s a good problem to have. :)</p>