Looking for colleges to apply to I was brought up with the idea of Barnard College and Columbia University and I wanted to know personal opinions as to if I was accepted to Barnard and Columbia which of the two schools should I attend. I am looking to go into Journalism and have some sort of relation with Political Science.
Cross that bridge when you have two acceptances. 
Core + coed or no Core + women’s?
You have a few threads asking people to compare Barnard to another school. There is no need to do this until 1) you get in and 2) the different options are determined to be affordable. For now your focus should be on crafting a well balanced application list that includes reach, match, and safety schools that appear affordable (find out your parents’ budget and run the net price calculator for each school) and that you would be happy to attend.
Suffice it to say that Barnard and Columbia are both outstanding schools and you would be very fortunate to be in a position to choose from among those options.
Barnard: Women’s college, more liberal arts feel, can still take classes at Columbia
Columbia: Common core required classes that everyone has to take, coed, more engineering/math focused than Barnard
Those are the two largest differences. That being said, Barnard’s acceptance rate is about three times that of Columbia, so you’d technically have a better shot at being accepted to Barnard.
I know admission rates are somehow sacred on CC. But it’s only partly true and definitely not the weight people give it here
A 10 percent admissions rate is not three times easier than 30 percent admissions. It all depends. I am tilting at windmills here. I will try one more time to make the point if 9 Nobel laureates are applying for three spots it’s a 33 percent acceptance rate. If 20 people with 11 less qualified than the original 9 throw their hat in the ring for the same three spots it’s now 15 percent acceptance rate. But the 17 who don’t get in did not have their odds improve at all. Zero. Some schools are so popular and well known they get way more applications. Yet the fight is still only among the top quartile.
Yes there are outliers but that is rare.
Some schools like Barnard self select a lot less Hail Mary applications and apply so I can say I did than Columbia.
The top students at each are still fighting it out. THe stats of the incoming class are probative but raw admissions percentages are way over rated.
And sometimes his admissions rate fallacy make students make bad decisions based on prestige aligned with that number. Georgetown has a 16 percent admit rate. They have their own app they mail decisions. They are a Jesuit school etc keep raw numbers down but has nothing to do with selectivity at the top. Ok. I’m done now. (: