<p>I am an extremely gifted writer and I hope to one day become a novelist. My dream is to eventually attend the Iowa Writer's Workshop. I have heard great things about the Creative Writing programs at Columbia, John's Hopkins, and NYU. Which of these schools has the best undergraduate program?</p>
<p>What, to you, defines “best”?</p>
<p>I am an extremely gifted writer… Sorry this is blunt: who or what says you are extremely gifted? This is the very first question any aspiring writer should ask her/himself. Most high schoolers’ writing experience is quite limited. </p>
<p>For the schools that interest you, have you looked at the course catalog and seen what’s offered? Ie, quantity of choices and how it may apply to your interests. You also need to identify your other academic interests because, with very rare exceptions, good writers are people with some sort of knowledge base and life experience; through that, they learn to observe, process and then produce.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to be discouraging. DH’s family is full of known authors- none majored in CW. They studied law, history, literature and science. I write and did not major in it. </p>
<p>Btw, I believe Iowa’s undergrad program has been expanded and offers some of the values the grad program has. Wesleyan’s program looks exciting.</p>
<p>Go to a quality university that is cheapest. The last thing you want as a writer is debt following your undergrad years.</p>
<p>The top MFA creative writing programs don’t care where you went undergrad, they care about your ability.</p>
<p>I have 2 family members that did writing MFA’s at Columbia. Neither would recommend it for undergrads or grads. Their undergrad degress were from Grinnell and Arkansas.</p>
<p>I looked for CW programs myself around one or two years ago, and amongst the schools that people kept mentioning were Iowa, Kenyon, JHU, Emory, NYU, UVA, Hamilton, and a couple of others whose names escape me. Do you want to specifically major in CW, though? A school with a strong English program (even without an emphasis in CW) could work for you. I remember I Googled the names of many contemporary writers to see what college they had attended (if any) and what they had majored in. It gave me a lot of perspective.</p>
<p>Personally, I arrived to the conclusion that I’d rather have a college teach me about the world than to have a college pretend to teach me how to write; have a what instead of a how, if you may. But that’s just my philosophy, that ultimately, one can’t be taught to write. (And okay, yeah, I can’t deny it, I’m as in love with sociology as I am with writing.)</p>
<p>Keep in mind that there are plenty of writing workshops that cost much less than a college degree.</p>