<p>i am truly interested in barnard, and have been lurking the barnard forum. and i never assumed that getting in was easy, i know it’s not.</p>
<p>and i’m not thinking it as a key or a backdoor into columbia. but i can’t deny that the main thing that attracts me about it is that i’ll be able to in a way “attend” columbia, so to speak. but i’ve always said that barnard is a great institution in of itself, and i never compare it to columbia, i don’t think it’s like…the easier, washed down version of columbia or something. or have a disdainful opinion of it as many people who post in those barnard vs columbia threads do. </p>
<p>and again, i don’t even know if i would go if i even got accepted. it’s just an option that i’d like to have. but thank you for your posts. i’ve learned a lot from them. :)</p>
<p>Could you be more arrogant, OP? Do you really think that “no school is a reach for you”? I understand your appreciation for Columbia, and I’m willing to believe that you’re not just interested in it because it’s an Ivy, but I don’t understand why you insist on transferring. You could have been rejected from Columbia and ended up at a school in the middle of nowhere, or even downtown at NYU. Instead, you’re right across the street and will have basically the same academic and extracurricular experience you’d have at Columbia. Yes, your dorm’s going to be single-sex (though it’s possible to get Columbia housing as an undergrad) and you’ll take some Barnard-specific seminars instead of LitHum and CC, but that’s it. You’ll probably make different friends and take different classes than you would have were you living in John Jay and taking LitHum, but that’s still up to you. And transferring to Columbia won’t solve that at all.</p>
<p>did i say no school is a reach for me? that’s clearly taken out of context. i suggest you read my post again.</p>
<p>and i’m not insisting on transferring, as i’ve clearly said more than once, it’s an option that i’d like to have. i have a lot of ways i can go right now. i just want as many of them open as i can.</p>
<p>and while i do find a lot of your posts helpful pwoods, you haven’t said anything that hasn’t already been said. so, thanks for posting, but it was kind of unnecessary.</p>
<p>Attending Barnard will not give you the “option” of transferring to Columbia. You would have to go through the same process to apply to transfer as any student from any other college. It is statistically harder to get into Columbia as a transfer than as a direct applicant --they accept only about 6% of transfer applicants. Coming from Barnard would not give you any sort of advantage, and it might be a disadvantage, depending on circumstances.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine why a Columbia admissions officer would look at two transfer applicants with similar stats, one from Barnard and one from any other school, and conclude that the Barnard student is the one who has a greater need of taking classes and experiences they can only have at Columbia. When your school is in the middle of nowhere and has a crappy English department, and you want to work closely with certain professors in the Columbia English department while experiencing life in New York City, THAT is a compelling reason to transfer. But if you go to Barnard, you have virtually the same academic and extracurricular opportunities as a student in CC.</p>
<p>OP - that is completely insulting to Barnard. Do us a favor and don’t apply for the purposes of attempting to live “vicariously through Barnard”, and shutting out some other girl who actually loved Barnard for what it is. </p>
<p>Also, Barnard generally has a good nose for that kind of thing - students who clearly perceive Barnard as a “back-door”. Also, CU won’t accept you as a transfer (you don’t think they don’t know that trick?) unless you have a legitimate reason. So no, you probably won’t be able to transfer, and then you’ll spend the next four years as a Columbia wannabe. Don’t do that to yourself.</p>
<p>I didn’t read the rest of this thread but I think it will be quite difficult to tell a compelling story of why you want to study at the College vs Barnard. The admissions committee is looking for reasons why you should study in CC rather than the institution you are currently at. The reason for SEAS is fairly easy since students want to study something less quantitative. </p>
<p>I think there’s quite a bit of overlap in the majors offered at Columbia College and Barnard and BC students can take classes in the college. This really restricts the motivation behind transferring. To be fair, I think that transferring can be done but you’ll have to prove that you can transfer anywhere else, i.e. Harvard, Yale, or Stanford. Also, you should be able to pay for school as I heard a rumor that the transfer classes tended to be students of means who didn’t need financial aid. This could just be a rumor, but it empirically holds from my experience.</p>