I think that if you demonstrate other commitments and how much time you’ve dedicated to them, you should be fine. I think they probably understand that you’re still using your time well.
Since ED decisions are due tomorrow, I just wanted to wish everyone good luck and say that I hope we’ll be seeing each other on campus next year!
Barnard is great but for you outdoorsy types who love hiking and things like that…you know that Barnard is in the city right? Just asking 
My D. is at Barnard and studying international relations. She was initially very interested in SIPA but now is more interested in the Kennedy School, Woodrow Wilson and SAIS. She said a lot of the students who go into international relations do something like Peace Corps first.
*Apps, ED apps are due, not decisions!
Hello everyone!
I just submitted my Barnard application for Early Decision a few days ago! I toured the campus, visited a class, and had the opportunity to have an interview with a current senior at Barnard last week. It was AMAZING. Their campus is absolutely beautiful and overall, all the students are incredibly friendly. Barnard is such a happy environment (: I am praying for my acceptance to Barnard but of course, I’m anxious as I’m not a star candidate. Hopefully, I receive good news in December!!!
I wish everyone good luck!!!
It’s never too late to introduce myself, right?
Barnard is one of my top choices, but I’m too indecisive to apply ED. I’m from Florida and I want to major in Political Science and concentrate on International Relations. I’m also interested in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Environmental Science. I’ve loved Barnard since I was in 10th grade and when I stepped onto campus it really felt like an oasis I could totally call home. Is it too early to say #Barnard2020??
dude… WHAT? I want to major in Political Science, concentrate in International Relations, and minor in Women’s Studies… are we the same person or…?
What did you guys write about for your essays? I’m honestly so nervous that mine were unoriginal [especially hearing about how you guys love Barnard for the same reasons…]
Common App Personal Essay- wrote about my love of language and linguistics, how I want to find the answer to a longstanding debate in evolutionary linguistics
Why Barnard- I think probably most people wrote similar things for this one, and that’s fine. The school is marketing itself a certain way, and there are only so many things that Barnard can have over other schools. As long as you got across why it’s Barnard for you above anything else, you should be fine.
Woman to have a conversation with- Nefertari Meritmut, a queen in Ancient Egypt. I wrote about how I fell in love with her when I read a historical fiction novel about her, and then how I was even more interested when I realized that historians actually know very little about her, but that what they do indicate that she was incredibly powerful and intelligent, and how I would want to talk to her so that I could find out more about a place, time period, and person that historians haven’t really been able to capture.
Majoring in unafraid- I wrote about how I went against the standard (not officially required, just socially expected) curriculum at my school in order to get the best education I could.
I’m really interested to see what other people wrote, if they’re willing to share!!
My personal essay was about washing dishes while backpacking; I answered the ‘transition to adulthood’ prompt. Why Barnard was about my interest in a women’s college as a prospective STEM major. Conversation with a woman was about my favorite poet, Mary Oliver. Majoring in unafraid was about travelling to work for a summer stock theatre this past summer and living on my own.
Good luck, everyone! Hope to see you all next fall.
Got to visit Barnard, absolutely love it!!! Hope good news comes to everyone in December!
applied to Barnard ED and I am so nervous!! here’s hoping. my mom went there and I would love to follow in her footsteps and Barnard is definitely my dream school. fingers crossed, good luck to everybody who applied ED!
Hey I’m an international student from India who applied ED, and I love Model UN too. I’ve applied for Economics and Political Science, let’s see how this goes! 
Hey girls! I have been in love with Barnard since my sophomore year. I am so anxious because while I think I’m qualified, I’m worried that I’m not good enough. I do debate, love to write, and am involved with gender equality issues. I think I want to major in psych.
My daughter is a sophomore at Barnard College. It was her one and only choice. She applied and was accepted ED. She could have gone anywhere else. Now we wish she had.
Before you commit to Barnard, ask them what their housing policy is for school breaks. You will learn that during winter break, they kick you out on the street. Though Columbia University, their partner, provides housing to their students during winter break, Barnard does not. Read the Columbia Daily Spectator to see the articles about the huge petition filed with Barnard over their horrible winter break housing announcement - for now, they changed to allow some students to remain in student housing for the winter break. But, I am not confident this will continue.
Barnard College’s policies regarding student housing during breaks is horrendous. They don’t care - they want you out ASAP. They recommend you ‘find a couch’ to sleep on for the times they kick you out of your student housing.
They charge more than Columbia does for student housing, yet, they provide less. Columbia allows students who need to stay in NYC during winter break to stay in their student housing. Also, Columbia allows athletes, international students and others to move into student housing a little bit early before the fall semester, if needed. Barnard does not - they are content to render their students homeless.
They have had staff turnover amongst administrators - deans - in recent years; there is no continuity, and it seems the remaining administrators are unhappy and stressed. This affects the quality of education at Barnard.
If we could go back in time, my daughter told me she would not apply to Barnard. We plan to meet with administrators to get improvements for our daughter, but if that doesn’t work, we are considering taking our $62,000 + a year from Barnard and giving it to another university who will take better care of their students.
Ask Barnard about the student housing they provide - the time periods when they do and more importantly the time periods when they DO NOT. Then ask them what they expect their students to do when they are homeless during the academic breaks.
@Truth12 Is housing during breaks the biggest issue you have had with Barnard?
I will take a look at the Spectator, but I do have a question as well. Do the girls from Barnard get to “rent” space over at Columbia for short breaks (less than, say, a week). Are there any accommodations made at Columbia, for a fee, for the Barnard girls who choose to stay around?
No, not the biggest one. One of too many problems that have occurred in the past two years. The issue regarding housing during school breaks and refusal to allow my daughter to move in ‘early’ during a time when they allowed other students to do so, is more like the ‘last straw’, yet another indication that the administrators are not as concerned about the students as perhaps they led us to believe.
After the hew and cry, and the petition drive, administrators have stated they will assist students in finding housing, however, I can not speak to what that ‘assistance’ entails. The original ‘help’ was advising Barnard students to find ‘a couch’ to sleep on.
I doubt Columbia has any procedure set up to assist Barnard students, as their student housing is most likely at capacity - they allow their students to stay in student housing during winter break, and, they allow more types of students to move in early prior to fall classes starting.
For the summer of 2015, my daughter did pay Barnard for summer housing. Summer housing in NYC for students doing internships is expensive, and quite limited as to what is available at any of the different college campuses - Columbia, Barnard, NYU, etc.
However, there was a two week period after summer housing ended, and before they allowed regular students to move into their fall student housing. My daughter asked if she could be allowed to move in to her fall student housing (which had been assigned) but she was refused. She slept on the couch of a Columbia student, who was allowed to move in early because s/he works for the student newspaper. My daughter also works for the same student newspaper, but Barnard would not allow her the same courtesy that Columbia allowed their student.
My daughter was able to move into her fall student housing one week early, during the time that Barnard allowed international students and transfers to move in, ONLY BECAUSE my daughter happened to be rooming with a transfer student.
We feel that Barnard’s strict, inflexible adherence to ‘housing rules’ in my daughter’s case was inhumane and unnecessary, considering the fact that they allowed so many other types of students to move in ‘early’.
@Truth12 – I’m sorry about the problems you have experienced with housing. However, I think you would find that most colleges close their dorms over breaks and colleges rarely allow early move-ins or late departures, because of all of the other administrative and maintenance stuff they need to take care of in the interim. In fact, I have very clear (and fond) memories of living surreptitiously in my freshman dorm over spring break at my university in the early 1970’s, because the dorm was closed and no students were officially allowed to remain. I was an out-of-state student attending a public u., and simply didn’t have the resources nor the desire to travel home then – so I hid out, wedging paper into the recess of a door latch for an exterior door so I could go in and out without getting locked out when the door swung shut behind me.
I know that dorms were closed over all breaks at my son’s first college, an east coast LAC. I remember one year he had to fly out and arrive a day before the dorms opened, and I think he might have spent the night sleeping on a couch in the student center.
In fact, I thought that Barnard’s dorm policies were extremely liberal when I learned that my DD would be able to stay in her dorm over Barnard’s spring break --that was a godsend for her because she was able to stay in town her first year and because of the Easter/Passover holiday it was a very busy and quite lucrative time for Barnard Bartending gigs – my DD earned enough over that spring break to finance the cost of her summer housing for an internship.
So I think your advice goes to students for ALL colleges: check the housing policies – but your expectations may have been unrealistic. My DD did go out to NYC a week early her first year, but she arranged to stay with friends and it didn’t even occur to her or to me to ask for an early move-in.
However, you do raise a good point in another respect - fending for oneself is a pretty important survival skill needed in NYC, and despite being a LAC, Barnard assumes that that its students are mature and capable enough to be able to sort out those sorts of problem for themselves. Finding a couch to sleep on is something that most college students can figure out – my daughter made her own arrangements in that respect even when she was still in high school, arranging to visit college. The first time she visited Barnard was in September of her senior year, and she spent one night in a hostel and a couple of nights sleeping on the floor of an NYU dorm - that’s what led to her adding NYU to her college list. Once summer she spent abroad and returned about 2 or 3 weeks before classes resumed at Barnard. She stayed with a friend in Harlem. (Not exactly with my maternal comfort zone… but that was my problem, not hers).
My DD graduated in 2010, before AirBnB was well-established – but I can see now that there are lots of listings in the Morningside Heights area - especially around the time of school breaks – apparently some students with apartments are quite happy to bring in some extra money by renting out a room while their roommates are gone during winter or spring break. So the key is simply to plan ahead. If a student is going to arrive before school starts or stick around during winter break, then they are going to have to make arrangements for housing. If that prospect is daunting, then perhaps that student (or their parents) will be happier if the student attends a college within easy driving distance of the parental home.