Hello! I’m an international student considering ED for Bard. I’ve heard the written arts program is highly sought after, but I could barely find anything about the program from present/past students. Any insight about the program would be great. Thanks!
It’s an amazing program. Check out the list of professors and the course list. Within Bard it is very selective and not every student is able to moderate but the entire literature department is phenomenal. It may not be on the top ten writing lists- for some unknown reason- but it should be at the top!
Hi, I am a Bard student and a student of writing and literature.
I am only a sophomore but I really think Bard’s creative writing program is one of the very best in the country. I would choose Bard’s CW program over the average Ivy’s CW program. The faculty are stellar. Joseph O’Neill, in particular, completely overturned and rebuilt my perspective on fiction in only a semester. Awards don’t necessarily indicate merit, but if it’ll convince you, he won the PEN-Faulkner award, which is arguably the highest award a writer in the US can receive that isn’t the Nobel Prize. He has a deeply mature and developed understanding of fiction and he communicates that maturity with every sentence he speaks. He’s also very, very funny. Of the other faculty I know, we have Ben Hale (young, went to Iowa Workshop), Jenny Offill (look her up), Franz Nicolay (very well-learned, gives great life and writing advice). Neil Gaiman taught a few classes at Bard only a couple years ago. There are many more examples you should research yourself.
Learning to write is arguably more about learning to read and understand the world and yourself than actually writing, and thankfully for that Bard also has an excellent array of humanities departments, especially for philosophy and literature. For the philosophy department, I highly recommend Yarran Hominh and Ruth Zisman, both of whom changed my life.
I have only been here for a year, so I wish I could say more and recommend more professors. Bard has its problems (mostly that the school doesn’t have enough money, so the living conditions are notably worse than at comparable schools, also why the acceptance rate is so high), but if you are looking for a great education and are willing to put the work in to earn the rewards, I think Bard is a great, great choice.
Also consider Vassar if you can get in, their English department is first-rate and they are about a 45m drive from Bard.
If you apply to Bard RD, my best application advice is to be very genuinely passionate about Bard, writing, or something else in your essay. Wherever you go, choose your classes and more importantly your professors wisely, and go to office hours. And if you go to Bard, find the classes you want and email the professors two weeks or more ahead of registration with good detail about why you want to take the class. That is the only sure way to get the classes you want at Bard.
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