This fall Poets & Writers magazine, has once again ranked Vanderbilt’s MFA program in Creative Writing 14th in the nation. The Creative Writing program, which ranks first in the nation for selectivity, only admits three poetry and three fiction writers each year.
In 2009, the first year Poets & Writers compiled this list (only four years after the program’s inception and only a year and a half after it had granted degrees to its first graduating class), Vanderbilt’s Creative Writing program was already ranked 18th, among the very best in the country.
“Our teacher-student ratio is 1-1. If you are accepted into this program, you are going to get attention,” said Mark Jarman, poet and director of the Creative Writing program. 
Each of the six students accepted annually receives a full scholarship, health insurance, and a stipend. This support is a significant attraction for incoming students as is the prospect of acquiring teaching experience at Vanderbilt. (All students tutor at the Vanderbilt Writing Studio during their first year and teach a workshop in their genre in their second year, so they graduate with teaching experience on their resumés.)
“As soon as I arrived in Nashville, the members of the MFA faculty were calling me to invite me out to coffee, to take me out to lunch,” said Matt Baker, a recent MFA graduate in fiction. “At any program in the country you can study under talented, published professors, but at Vanderbilt they’re also genuinely interested in the lives of their students. That’s something the Poets & Writers rankings don’t even take into account. Take that into consideration, and I think our program is at least top five.”
Poets & Writers ranked programs in eight categories, including size, duration, cost of living, teaching load and curriculum focus.
Vanderbilt, which launched its Master of fine Arts Creative Writing program in 2005, places well not only for its selectivity, but also for the level of support it provides its students, and the affordable cost of living in Nashville, a community full of creative people–musicians, songwriters, visual artists, and writers.
