What's considered a spike?

parsoc
Mon, 19 Dec 2016 18:45:33 +0000

The advantage of having creative writing as your potential “spike” is that you have an opportunity in your essays and perhaps a short art supplement to show your spike skill to the adcom without needing independent evidence like other spikes (sports spikes, science research spikes, chess spikes…). Most adcoms populated by university faculty will have some sense of quality creative writing. And, many of these summer creative writing programs are competitive - you don’t get accepted without a quality writing sample (although admittedly less competitive than some other national competitions showing spikiness.)