Due to the larger size of the Columbia undergrad community, and the fact that it’s co-ed, I would expect there to be a more diverse/bigger selection of clubs, activities, and organizations at Columbia rather than Barnard. So, I was wondering - is Barnard integrated enough with Columbia that clubs and such are open to students of both schools? Essentially, are the clubs at Columbia and Barnard restricted to only students of that university, or are all allowed to join (and is there any sense of tension/awkwardness if mixing does happen)?
Virtually all clubs & similar student life activities involve both campuses. For those purposes, Barnard/Columbia is a unified community. It works both ways - there really aren’t many Barnard-only clubs either. Even clubs with “Barnard” in their name may be open to Columbia students – for example, when my daughter was in college she participated in WBAR (Barnard College Radio) - but there were also many male Columbia students who had WBAR programs. (And I am sure female Columbia students as well, it’s just that the station never listed college affiliations of its DJ’s).
The exception would be student government (a Columbia student couldn’t run to be Barnard class President, for example) – and male-only fraternities at Columbia (for obvious reasons). But Barnard students can join Columbia sororities.
This page has a current list of Barnard & Columbia clubs: https://barnard.edu/studentlife/governing-board/ourclubs
And here’s a list of Columbia clubs: https://undergrad.admissions.columbia.edu/learn/studentlife/activities
@calmom Awesome, thank you so much for the detailed response! Appreciate it.
@calmom @jugglingowl For a female applicant there is one thing to consider and that is that some Barnard programs (Athena Leadership Program and some others) are only open to Barnard College students, as is Barnard’s Well Women Program. I know that some female CC students have been chagrined to find that they couldn’t join the Athena Program–albeit they could participate in many of its activities.
I’d consider Athena Leadership to be an academic offering of Barnard rather than a club or activity – it requires completion of multiple academic courseswhich are graded… But yes, something applicants might consider if thinking of applying to both Barnard and Columbia. (It didn’t exist when my daughter was at Barnard, so no direct knowledge - but the requirements are listed here: https://athenacenter.barnard.edu/program-requirements
Well Woman is a service of Barnard’s health service.
Barnard also has a career office that offers programs specifically to Barnard women.
So yes: Barnard has a variety of services and progams that are offered only to Barnard women.
But the OP asked about “clubs”. So that’s the question I tried to answer.