<p>I'm going to be graduating from high school this coming Spring, and I'm pretty set on pursing a major as an undergraduate in Creative Writing, and then perhaps going to UI for a Master.</p>
<p>I want to go to go to a school in the midwest that has a good cross country team, as well as creative writing program (division doesn't matter.) </p>
<p>Currently I am considering Knox, Oberlin, and Coe College. I am also considering GVSU and Albion, however GVSU only has an emphasis and Albion isn't that well known. </p>
<p>Can anybody attest to these colleges/programs? Any other suggestions? Thanks.</p>
<p>college board’s search tool came up with 84 schools that meet your criteria as stated. You can use other factors such as size, location (city vs country), selectivity to narrow it down, and then start researching from there. Sorry I can’t offer more concrete suggestions than that ;-)</p>
<p>I’ve heard many good things about the writing program at Knox over the years. Oberlin has a good program as well, I believe, and is a fantastic school overall. I would keep them on the list. If your stats are good enough, you may get merit aid at one of them. </p>
<p>Beloit and Denison are well worth a look for creative writing; both have a long history of producing very good writers.</p>
<p>What is your safety? You need at least one school you can get into and afford. For affordability, your local flagship public might be best, and many public universities in the Midwest like Iowa, Michigan, Ohio State, Bowling Green State, Wisconsin, etc. have very good writing programs. You might want to look into the [Midwest</a> Student Exchange.](<a href=“http://www.mhec.org/MidwestStudentExchangeProgram]Midwest”>http://www.mhec.org/MidwestStudentExchangeProgram)</p>
<p>Normally I would go with the best school, which from your list would be Denison. As one of the “Five Colleges” in Ohio, it is really good reputation wise and has a lot of great students. However, unless you are willing to pay the very high tuition, I think its around $30,000 a year at Denison then I would consider GVSU or another state school. Plus, if you can get into Denison you probably would get a lot of scholarships from GVSU. You might need a master’s degree since creative writing isn’t the most marketable degree out there.</p>
<p>Just to add another perspective or two, I’ve read several authors opine that college creative writing courses are a bad way to become a creative writer. I’m sorry I can’t reference these without a small research project. You might take the writers you admire the most and find out how they say they developed their writing.
Then it is impossible from the outside to judge what your experience with faculty will be. My son was in a theater dept. because he wanted to be a playwrite. He and the playwriting professor got along poorly from the start. A co-worker of mine describes how rude and insufferable his writing professor was at Knox. That was 10 years ago, so he may be gone. My daughter’s boyfriend was a creative writing major at Princeton. His thesis (an original work) was supervised by a very, very famous author. She was not helpful as a teacher, and neither was an equally famous writer he described. My son, the co-worker, and the boyfriend were generally happy with their schools and not complaining types. The co-worker was student body president and the boyfriend graduated Phi Beta Kappa.
It would take some work to meet the people who would teach you during campus visits, but it might be worthwhile.</p>
<p>I would add Grinnell to your list. It doesn’t have a major, but does have a vibrant creative writing program, and takes advantage of its proximity to Iowa U’s famed Masters program to bring in authors for readings and for teaching terms:</p>
<p>Be aware that Oberlin has a “juried curriculum” where “interested students must apply for admission into the program,” ie., the major is limited to those whose writing submissions qualify them for the major. It says that “about 20- 30 students graduate from the program each year.” It offers only two first-year courses to non-majors.</p>
<p>Denison is $41K just for tuition, $52K cost of attendance. Coe is about $10K less. Oberlin about $5K more. Hopefully the OP comes from a wealthy family.</p>
<p>also, here is a link to info about Grinnell’s cross-country team. This is a media guide that includes information about time records, so you can get an idea of how you’d fit in. At the end it also describes where they train. </p>
<p>I know that the countryside near Grinnell is really beautiful. My son rides his bike alot and I’ve driven around there. Rolling farmland hills, wide open sky.</p>