Choices.

I am considering three low-residency MFA programs: 1. the optional residency program at UBC; 2. the low residency NYU program which residencies in Parish (sic!); and 3. the Warren-Wilson low residency program.

They all have their pros and cons. UBC allows up to five years to finish the program part-time. It is Canadian, and its tuition is the lowest. You do not have to attend the residencies, but if you want to, they only take place once a year, in July, in Vancouver. It has a well-known and critically acclaimed faculty (Annabel Lyon, Wayne Grady, etc.). It would be the most convenient and the cheapest. Also most flexible.

The NYU program is alluring - what more can one want than study writing in  Paaaaahris?! The faculty is accomplished, recognized and has won numerous accolades. There are at least three Guggenheim fellows on faculty and numerous National Award winners. Chris Adrian, my literary alter-ego (OK so he is gay, male, and accomplished, none of which I am, but he is also a pediatrician and in his writing has expressed many of my feelings and traumas of pediatric residency training), is one of them and I would LOVE to study with him. Cons? Paris itself, Charles de Gaulle airport which I would have to travel through at least five times in two years, cost, and family who may not want me to be away so much. And you are supposed to finish in two years. But, boy, oh boy, would I LOVE to do this one!

I do not know much about the Warren-Wilson program other than it is the oldest low-residency program in the US, and that it has produced many published authors. Also two year, but more affordable than NYU and Paris, and it's bit more convenient to travel to North Carolina.

I will apply to all three, and see who takes me!