<p>I think it depends on your school – if there are other students who have been accepted to Columbia, it may seem that you are trying to be pretentious to add the “of Columbia University” part. If you are at the kind of high school where hardly anybody goes off to a private 4 year college – where most of the kids are off the state university or a cc – then the “Columbia U.” part also seems pretentious – whereas “Barnard College” sounds nice enough. (Those who want to know more will ask). </p>
<p>There is a part in the middle where it simply is informative – for example, the kind of schools where a lot of kids are off to private colleges of varying stages of selectivity, but is not so competitive that anyone is obsessed with Ivy admissions… and then “Barnard College of Columbia University” does sound nice.</p>
<p>My personal experience has been that people who don’t know what “Barnard” is usually don’t have a clue as to what “Columbia University” is either – they certainly are not aware that it’s Ivy League. </p>
<p>My bigger problem was with the people who do know something about colleges, but somehow always heard “Bard” when I said “Barnard”. (“Oh, is that the liberal arts college in upstate NY? I hear it’s very pretty there”) So for that small contingent, it does help to add the Columbia reference.</p>