Will your D20 do the Barnard visit solo? I am trying to convince D20 to head up there for a day from Philly on her own but the prospect seems daunting. Train-> subway-> finding the classes-> introducing self to professor → remaining “attentive” through the whole class (getting sleepy is a stress reaction for her) → reverse subway trip–> reverse train trip. Of all of those, introducing self to professor is the likely deal breaker.
So many cool looking classes, though!
No solo trip, in part because the next day is Wellesley and MA apparently doesn’t allow minors to stay unaccompanied in hotels.
She’ll do the classes by herself, though. The Barnard schedule (going by memory so times / titles are approximate)looks something like:
9:30 interview
10:30 tour
11:30 parents to info session
11:40 World Lit Revisited
1:00 mom hands off takeout container of soup dumplings
1:10 Race & Ethnicity
2:40 International Politics
3:55 free time / souvenirs / dinner
6:00 head to airport
Stress-sleepy is an unfortunate one. Mine gets pickier about food and/or breaks out in hives. But she doesn’t find new teacher interactions stressful.
Then the Wellesley visit will be:
10a interview / 10am parent to info session
11a Tour
12:30p Lunch with student
2:10p Perspectives on French Culture & Society
[maybe 4:15p overnight, maybe touristing around Boston; kid needs to call Monday when she has a day off school and ask about whether an overnight is possible]
next day:
8:30a: Self&World
9:55a: Climate Change
11:20a: An Introduction to Neuroscience (she was torn between this and Women in the Economy, and finally decided “because what if it turns out I really love neuroscience”)
12:45p: Gender in the Workplace
3:25p: free time / souvenirs
4:15p: head to airport
The second day has barely enough time to run between classes, so I suspect there will be a mom lunch hand-off there, too. It’s possible there will be a “mom walks the most direct route between classes and kid follows from a distance” plan, if she doesn’t have time to pre-walk the schedule the first day. The Barnard campus is small enough that the 15 minutes between classes is plenty of time for her to find her own way, but 10 minutes on Wellesley’s expanse doesn’t allow for much getting lost.
Can you tell that sitting in on classes is the thing she cares about most? The interview timing at both schools is unfortunate, but she literally got the last available interview slot for the three days she had to choose from at each one.
@calmom Ooh, the student review site was so helpful! In one of the time slots, kid was torn between two classes; turns out the one she decided to go with has a professor whose style is one I think she’ll enjoy much more. Thank you!
My DS 19 would gladly have visited all 3000 schools in the US if he got handed a container of Soup Dumplings each time…
There is a nonzero chance we will eat soup dumplings every day of the trip.
There are so many awesome things in those two posts, and the soup dumplings are the very best thing. Can’t wait to hear how these two days go. My D20 is waffling on whether Barnard is a good fit so I’m curious how the campus and particularly the classroom vibe strike your D.
And the answer is that no overnight at Wellesley is possible. Monday through Thursday really does mean only Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and I don’t know why the website says to call if calling gets you referred back to the website. 
So now we’re looking for a friendly stranger’s floor she can crash on Thursday 10/17.
@allyphoe Did you find a friendly stranger’s floor in MA? Hope these two visits go well next week! So impressed that your kid is going to make it to all those class visits.
Alas, no! I think we’re going to tourist around Boston Thursday evening instead.
So apparently Wellesley will only let you visit one class. Which they think is obvious from the website, but sure would have changed our travel plans had it been obvious to any of us. Or even if they’d emailed more than two days ahead of time.
Barnard! I loved it, probably primarily because it made me think of my own college experience. Old looking buildings, grassy courtyards with city trees, a blowy gray fall day, cars that will run you over and pedestrians mostly ignoring them.
Notes from Barnard info session:
Essay: free write to get ideas!
They’re assessing how you think, not how well you write
3/4 should be the impact on you, 1/4 of the context of the situation
Why Barnard? Not because it’s a women’s college in NYC! What is it about you that makes you want a women’s college? Why do you want to be in NYC? What do you want to get out of that awesome sounding class?
Talk to a woman essay: Create a situation where you were hypothetically empowered by a woman. What would that look like?
Wants entire testing history. Self-report every single time you sat FOR EITHER SAT OR ACT. I asked specifically if you could choose one or the other and the answer was yes.
Notes from Mom hanging out on campus unchaperoned: There are zero publicly accessible spots on campus that are both silent and deserted, and few that are either silent or deserted. The campus is small enough you won’t get long distance walking exercise, but you will make up for it in stairs. The elevators are plentiful but slow, so people able enough to do without don’t find them tempting. There are more men than on the Smith or Mount Holyoke campuses, but few enough it still feels strongly like a women’s college. Lots of obvious ethnic diversity, even compared to schools with similar diversity on paper. Lots of interactions between students of different apparent ethnicities. Super friendly and welcoming staff. Plenty of time to get between classes; scheduling back to back wouldn’t require checking to make sure the walk was doable. Students in the quad.
Notes from tour: first years and any upperclass students who live in the Quad can go to student health and meals in their jammies because it’s all one big connected building. I hear there are tunnels connecting the entirety of campus so you don’t have to go out in the snow ever.
Poor kid is falling over with exhaustion due to some travel snafus on top of typical overextended senior year overwork and undersleep on top of some stressful news. She’s talking now about maybe doing a gap year language immersion abroad, or even a year working full time, so that she’s looking forward to formal full-time education again. My guess is that Barnard is not where she’ll end up, because she is an introvert who really values deserted silent spaces.
Agnes Scott came off the list again last night, for extensive reasons summarized as “the marketing emails they send me feature white students disproportionately to their representation in the student body, ~75% vs ~35%.” ASC has the lowest percentage of students of her ethnicity, none of whom are featured in the marketing material they’ve sent her.
Barnard students do not stay on campus. Riverside Park is 2 blocks away, and Central Park is an easy walk. I wouldn’t say that Riverside Park is ever silent or deserted, but it is a very long stretch of open space, greenery, and a nice quite walking path that doesn’t seem crowded either. As to Central Park-- there are some forested spots where a person can feel very far from civilization and it’s quite possible to get lost in the park (I speak from experience).
Again, Barnard students do not stay on campus. New Yorkers walk, and walk, and walk, pretty much everywhere. People are just in the habit of walking 10 or 15 or 20 blocks – and Barnard & Columbia students spend a lot of time going up and down Broadway to various shops and eateries.
I don’t know about current status of tunnels on the Barnard campus because of new construction since my daughter was there – but there is no tunnel access to Columbia and most students at Barnard are going to spend a lot of time on the Columbia campus. My daughter had more classes at Columbia her first two years than on the Barnard side. So yes, the tunnels are nice – I used them when I visited my daughter her first year – but kids generally are going to get up and get dressed and go outside. Also – I don’t know if things have also changed over the years since my daughter was there – but at the time my daughter attended, it seemed that Barnard women tended to be fashion conscious – so the campus culture wasn’t really one that encouraged loungewear.
As to your daughter being a person “who really values deserted silent spaces.” – you are probably right – overall Barnard is a high energy, fast-paced urban environment – so may not be the right environment for a person who needs a lot of alone time and values a sense of solitude.
Did your daughter get to attend all the planned classes at Barnard? What was her impression?
Thanks for the park info! Kid and I discussed the apparent lack of quiet empty spaces, and she said that what she really wished she’d had in Boston was roof access - quiet outdoors with a panoramic view. So I went over to the visitor center and asked, and the student worker suggested either the green roof of the Diana Center or some of the balcony-like study rooms on the upper floors of the library. A most satisfactory answer!
I didn’t get the impression that the current students were more fashion conscious than my kid is, but she is not exactly the breakfast in jammies type, either.
She did get to attend all three classes. My initial impression is that there wasn’t as much student interaction in Barnard classes as there had been at Smith, where she really likes more student participation over lecture. It’s hard to know how much of that is luck of the draw, though.
We had much improved travel luck this evening, so hopefully will be better rested for Wellesley tomorrow.
I think it will take a few days to know if Barnard moved up or down for my kid on this visit. I suggested it because she enjoyed being in the middle of Boston so much, but the reality is that she was utterly overwhelmed by Boston for the first couple of weeks. New York is similarly overwhelming on first impression. I think Barnard is currently at the top of my “if Mom were 18 and headed to college” list, though. I liked living in New Haven a million years ago.
Some good travel luck, lots of food, and a full night of sleep later, kid liked Barnard a lot. Turns out I misread her vague comments entirely, and she sees NYC as the best feature of Barnard. One of my friends described Barnard as the least “women’s college like” of the East Coast women’s colleges, and my kid agrees and saw that as a bug rather than a feature for her. She really wants to be able to take all of her courses at “her” school / at a college primarily focused on educating women. Barnard’s course catalog is extensive enough that we all think she’d be fine there, but Scripps, for instance, has far fewer courses offered directly by Scripps.
A lovely blowy gray New England day to visit Wellesley!
Wellesley info session Mom-notes:
Reading essays: Looking for students who are willing to articulate their own views, willing to listen to other people’s views, and open to change. How uncomfortable are you willing to be?
Teacher recs - who you are in the classroom. Abstract thinker or literal thinker? Connections between unrelated subjects? Leader in classroom groups? Help others? DON’T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT EXTRACURRICULARS. Write thank you notes to teachers. Give them reminders of specific things you did / say in class.
Counselor rec - This is the one that ties in school with community, make appointment and tell them what’s important to you.
“Can she be academically successful at Wellesley?” This is almost always a yes. “Who is she? What’s her story? Who will she be in the community? Active participant? Not afraid to fail?” (But example was of someone who struggled and eventually managed an A, then as an afterthought, or a B+.)
75 “possible” early evaluation applicants are admitted every year. Likely is an admission, unlikely is a rejection.
90% of attending students initially didn’t want a women’s college.
Kid impression following interview / tour / lunch with student: This visit has been very helpful, because Wellesley is not a good fit.
She wants to revisit Smith, which I think is currently her top choice.
Terrific reports! I love Smith. My D took classes there the last semester before graduation (from a consortium school). I was visiting and went with her one afternoon to kill time in N-hampton while she had classes. I also love the nooks and crannies of that town.
While it would theoretically be possible for a Barnard woman to take all courses at Barnard (and I’m sure that some do) – I think a student who does that would be selling herself short - by failing to take advantage of all of the available resources. And it isn’t just about attending classes – it is participating in all the other activities at the two campuses, use of facilities like the many libraries at Columbia, attending various events at Columbia. And keep in mind that Columbia students are cross-enrolling in Barnard courses as well as using various facilities on the Columbia campus.
Of course, a student can enroll with one thing in mind and change their outlook over time – but it sounds like Barnard doesn’t offer the more insular academic environment your daughter is looking for. It’s a hybrid — and definitely offers a very women-centric experience overall – but not anything close to a women-only experience.