<p>Is that true? and they both share the same facilities and Barnard is a girl college?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.barnard.edu/about/btoday.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.barnard.edu/about/btoday.html</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.barnard.edu/about/columbia.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.barnard.edu/about/columbia.html</a></p>
<p>"In an arrangement unique in American higher education, Barnard has its own campus, faculty, administration, trustees, operating budget and endowment, while students earn the degree of the University.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>Barnard is an undergraduate college formally affiliated with the University. Students at each institution can take courses at the other. Barnard students receive the diploma of the University signed by the presidents of both institutions, and the College is represented in the University Senate. At the same time, Barnard is legally separate and financially independent from the University; sets its own student fees; has a separate endowment, administration and faculty, and admissions office; and undertakes its own fund-raising. Under the affiliation agreement, Barnard may admit only women to its degree-granting programs while Columbia may admit both men and women to its degree programs."</p>
<p>Columbia College is the co-ed liberal arts school of Columbia University. Barnard College is the all-women liberal arts school of Columbia University.
They do share the same facilities although Barnard has its own campus, administration, requirements, and philosophy.
Please, however, do not think of Barnard as a "back door" into Columbia, since your username indicates you want to go to an Ivy. Barnard is its own institution and you should go here because you are proud of it.</p>
<p>A little more history might clarify -- (I'm just learning it myself). Columbia University used to have 2 undergraduate liberal arts colleges: Columbia College, for men; Barnard College for women. Columbia College was the very last Ivy to go co-ed, which was in 1983. So basically, back when I entered high school in the 60's, females couldn't attend Ivy's and all the smartest women went to a set of women's colleges called the "Seven Sisters", which included Barnard.</p>
<p>Harvard used to have a similar, shared-campus arrangement with the women's college, Radcliffe - but when Harvard went co-ed, it merged with Radcliffe. </p>
<p>Columbia College wanted to do the same -- merge with Barnard -- and there was a period of time before Columbia went co-ed where they tried to negotiate that deal. But Barnard said no way. I don't know why, but maybe the people who ran Barnard thought that Barnard was fine just the way it was, and didn't want the Columbia administration coming in and trying to take control. </p>
<p>Columbia needed women more than Barnard needed men, so basically when Barnard refused to merge, they went co-ed any way. Based on 2004 statistics, Columbia has 52% men, 48% women -- many of the Ivies have a majority of women, but probably the presence of Barnard draws off some of the women applicants who might otherwise apply to Columbia - when you add in the Barnard women, you get a ratio for both colleges of 60% women/ 40% men. (Which really isn't too far off of what is typical these days for many co-ed liberal arts colleges).</p>
<p>Students admitted to Barnard tend to have slightly higher GPA's than Columbia: average GPA at Barnard = 3.9; Columbia = 3.8
-- whereas Columbia students have slightly higher SAT scores. I believe that this mirrors gender differences across the board; my understanding is that in general, girls tend to have better grades than boys in school, but boys tend to do better on standardized tests - or at least the smartest ones do. (I think that the issue is with outliers- the very best and the very worst scorers tend to be boys, but of course a highly selective school like Columbia would only pick from the very best).</p>
<p>It would be interesting to see what the grade & test score distribution is among Columbia women to see if the same dichotomy shows up there. It may be that the GPA is higher at Barnard simply because only women apply, with the median SAT range being higher at Columbia because they've got men in their pool. It will also be interesting to see if these numbers bear out over time with the addition of the SAT Writing exam and modifications made to the SAT CR & Math sections, as the College Board made those changes in part to counter claims of gender bias in the test. </p>
<p>You can see that I am very happy to become a Barnard booster and I am one very proud mama bear. My daughter never even considered applying to Columbia -- she preferred the more flexible curriculum offered at Barnard (she also applied to NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Studies & Brown - both colleges with open curriculums) -- and she is a talented dancer & choreographer, and Columbia doesn't have a dance department. In other words, Columbia makes no sense for her, Barnard is an almost perfect fit. </p>
<p>Anyway, the bottom line is that Columbia University is a great campus that affords many options through its subsidiary colleges, just in the same way that my daughter was able to choose Gallatin over CAS at NYU. Barnard has several joint 5-year combined degree programs with Columbia University, including an accellerated path into Columbia Law School. (I'm sure Columbia College probably offers the same, though I haven't checked).</p>
<p>Glad to have you on the team, Calmom.</p>