| Data point: Actually more Columbia students sit in Barnard courses than the other way around. So, we could say that Columbia isn't independent either, but that would be a silly way to look at it.
Wellesley is a bucolic campus steeped in an almost finishing girl atmosphere that now has some of the most pre-professional of the seven sisters. It is beautiful, challenging, rigorous, wonderful.
Barnard is a serene enclave in a gritty city on a postage sized campus. It's history is of a commuter school growing into a dorming college. It's academics are equally rigorous and its crowning glory is turning out writers, though half the female doctors used to hail from Barnard. It never had the "finishing school" atmosphere because it always trained women for careers, whereas Wellesley educated some of the most intelligent wives ever. (See Mona Lisa smile.
But that's all in the past.
Now both are wonderful liberal arts colleges. The choice is yours.
And for my part, as a Barnard mom, I do not want to compete with our Wellesley sisters. I just want to commend them on their really fine school. |