Dear Applicant,

It is my great pleasure to inform you of your acceptance to Franconia University’s Master of Fine Arts Program in Selling Out.

We received nearly 5,000 more applications this year than last, for the largest applicant pool in the program’s history. Aspiring sellouts from twenty-seven different countries represented everything from life sciences to pure mathematics to traditional sellout fields, like the arts and design. We are thrilled to offer admission to members of such a talented and diverse group.

Our admissions panel found your background as an experimental violinist and poet extremely promising. Your response to the essay prompt, “What would your startup’s vibe be like?” also played a key role in our decision: no one on the panel had ever seen an applicant directly offer us equity in her as-yet-unfounded company. This was an admirably innovative approach to the application process, and frankly, we accept your offer.

At FU, we look for just that kind of vision. It’s the raw material out of which we sculpt future superstar marketing, finance, and screenwriting sellouts. People who take a hard look at the long road to artistic success and decide to skip to the end: success. People who hear the hog’s horn blowing and just totally blast on over to the trough.

While we are excited to offer admission to you for the upcoming school year, the admissions office was notified of your concurrent application to the MBA Nonprofit Management program. In the event that you are accepted into that program as well as the MFA SO, please be aware that you may only enroll in one full-time graduate program, and consider the following as you make your decision:

  • The MBA in Nonprofit Management provides industry-leading expertise on administrative and outreach tactics in the nonprofit field. The MFA SO program teaches promising creatives to brand and sell themselves for financially remunerative life paths.
  • As part of the School of the Arts, the MFA SO program immerses students in the visual arts, film, writing, music, ceramics, and more. You’ll be surrounded by talented people with unique perspectives and little business acumen, bursting with ideas that can be re-appropriated—and monetized—by the right entrepreneur.
  • The MFA SO program faculty is intimately familiar with the needs of transitioning artists. We know that you have questions like, what should you do with extra money after you hit your 401K’s contribution cap? Or, is Europe, Asia, or South America best for your yearlong sabbatical? Our seminar series brings in recent graduates to talk to you about these questions and more. One week you might listen to the editor-in-chief of a tech trade magazine describe “Disrupting Relaxation,” and the next week you could hear a painter-slash-CFO talk about “Marxist Ethics in a Business Environment.”
  • The MBA Nonprofit Administration program offers tuition assistance in the form of loans. Tuition levels set by other programs in the School of Arts allow the Program in Selling Out to continue to offer its generous support packages.

Incidentally, information on your financial aid package is enclosed. We want our sellouts to be prepared for their future experiences in the real world, so in addition to providing the university’s only tuition-free graduate arts program, we are pleased to offer a stipend of $90,500 for the 2014–2015 term. (You’ll have the option to teach a class in your second year to receive a supplemented stipend of $143,000.) The program also provides health insurance for all students and student loan forgiveness options for those who would otherwise enter the program with education-related debt.

You face a difficult choice, as someone who could’ve made vital, revolutionary contributions to her field and to art more broadly, even to our understanding of just what it is to be human, etc. Here at the MFA Selling Out program, we recognize that not everyone has the grit to let go of her unstructured free time, or the clarity of a limited menu of affordable lifestyle options. And sometimes even we miss our weekday 4 a.m. rooftop conversations with the other city youth. But we sense from your application a mature awareness that art isn’t going anywhere—that you can get to it later in life, once you’ve amassed enough personal wealth to really focus on your creative passions without feeling distracted by your relative poverty.

We hope you will join us in embarking as a community upon this exciting journey, honing our craft and selling out together. Please notify us of your decision by May 15. Campus visits may be arranged with our staff and your hotel costs will, of course, be covered through the program’s arrangement with the nearby St. Regis.

We look forward to your reply!

Sincerely,
Office of Admissions
FU MFA Program in Selling Out

PS. Be sure to check out the Fall Semester course listings included in your admissions packet, including “History of Hustle,” “Beyond Consumer Goods and Evil,” and “Lunch!”