The Uneven Student

cobrat
Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:21:01 +0000

calmom:

As the parent of a recent Barnard grad, from what you say, I don’t think that Barnard is a good fit.

In the first place, the reading load and writing expectations are intense.

Secondly, even though Barnard is a LAC with many small classes, it also has many larger lecture-type courses, and most students end up taking a significant part of their coursework at Columbia, which also has larger courses.

Finally, Barnard is a community of extremely engaged, self-directed, and highly focused young women. I think that a person really needs a certain level of urban tough to be happy there – the “campus” that your d. loves is the size of a postage stamp and most socializing takes places off campus. It’s possible that Barnard is just the place for your d. to be challenged and to come down from her cloud, but the point is that it is an environment that challenges more than it nurtures.



Several high school classmates who initially started at state/city university colleges because they were C-level students in high school were warned similarly about how “they won’t fit academically” at the elite colleges they were looking to transfer into because of their high school records or lowish standardized test scores. Found it quite interesting how they managed to prove all those naysayers wrong after finishing with 3.5+ college GPAs at their elite colleges…including Columbia.

On the other hand, I would echo the concern about Barnard’s fit due to school’s seeming academic orientation. From what I’ve heard and seen from Barnard students, the school is heavily weighed toward the humanities and social sciences over STEM fields. A factor which caused several Barnard students I knew to transfer out to peer institutions with stronger STEM programs.