Barnard vs Georgetown

Parents Forum
21

<p>The reality is that there are some very old, and tired, running jokes, many of which are not very flattering to Columbia women – so for the most part it’s sexism, and Columbia as an institution certainly has a very long history of misogyny. But that’s why Barnard was formed in the first place, and why the administration was not keen on merger back in the 80’s. But that stuff is pretty much taken as seriously as the light bulb jokes:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-confidential-cafe/1118170-ivy-league-lightbulb-jokes.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-confidential-cafe/1118170-ivy-league-lightbulb-jokes.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Also, anyone who would make a statement like “There is a significant difference in SATs between the schools” would probably flunk the Columbia stats class my daughter took (and earned an A in). But then again I’ve known for a long time that when it comes to looking at test scores, CC’er in general don’t get the concept of a “median”, much less “standard deviation”. And I always kind of wondered why, if Columbia students were so brilliant, that they even offered a statistics course geared to students who had “some high school algebra” (Stats W1001) – (a notch below the stats course that my math-adverse daughter took, which at least was geared to students who have completed “intermediate” high school algebra). But that’s just me. </p>

<p>(Math has never been my daughter’s thing, and she didn’t find stats easy, so I can only assume that her A in the course is an indication of a curve set pretty low).</p>

22

<p>calmom, I would appreciate it if you didn’t insult me personally. Here are the College Board numbers. </p>

<p>The 25-75% of first-year students at Barnard was:
CR 630-730
M 620-720
W 650-750
ACT 28-32
Admissions rate: 28%</p>

<p>Columbia reports:
CR 690-780
M 700-790
W 690-780
ACT 31-34
Admissions rate: 10%</p>

<p>I understand you may not see that as significant, but it is. As a matter of fact, you have often posted about how your daughter didn’t do well on her SATs but was still accepted to an ivy league.</p>

23

<p>I actually think Barnard is in many respects better than Columbia. Better articulated curriculum. Better housing. More faculty focused solely on undergraduates. There are also several departments that Columbia doesn’t even have, where students come over to Barnard. There are certainly fewer jocks.</p>

24

<p>mini, You could be very right. I think the only issue in this thread is whether some kids use the issue against Barnard women and I’ve personally heard it so I don’t want to say it doesn’t exist. However, it shouldn’t be the basis of this student’s decision. This student is comparing two very different areas of study at Barnard and Georgetown. If the student is undecided or interested in sciences, I would lean toward Barnard. If the student is definitely going into an international field, I would lean toward Georgetown.</p>

25

<p>2collegewego, thanks for bringing this back on point. I don’t want to actually discuss the qualifications of Columbia students vs Barnard students. In fact, my d’s SATs and ACTs are both in the upper ranges of Columbia’s (per your stats) and she is ranked 1 in her hs class of almost 700 grads (just bragging, sorry…), so she’s not lacking in confidence when it comes to her academic strength.</p>

<p>I just don’t want her college experience to center around this kind of nonsense and from what I have read here and in other places, it looks like it is an issue but mostly just fueled by a small percentage of the population.</p>

<p>Our main issue is which school provides the flexibility for an undecided who has interest in exploring these two areas of study. I am coming out on the side of Barnard (she can always get her masters at Georgetown or somewhere else if she wants to pursue foreign service or international relations). I wonder if she’ll agree… :)</p>

26

<p>Re post #22 — as I said, most CC’ers don’t really understand much about statistics. </p>

<p>Let’s start with the concept of “significant”. In order for a score difference to be considered “significant” on the SAT, it must be at least one standard deviation apart. The standard deviation for the SAT is set at 110. So a “significant” differential in scores would be a scores that are at least 110 points apart. 690 is not 110 points higher than 630; 780 is not 110 points higher than 730 – and it isn’t 110 points higher than 690 either. So even the difference between the very top figure of Columbia’s score mid-range is not significant as compared to the very bottom figure of the very bottom figure of Barnard’s. </p>

<p>Now lets get into the idea of “median 50%”. Barnard has roughly 570 student in its entering class – and we know from the data at [Counselors</a> | Barnard College](<a href=“http://www.barnard.edu/admissions/counselors]Counselors”>http://www.barnard.edu/admissions/counselors) that the mid-50% for their scores was 680, so we can see that there are 285 Barnard students with CR scores at or under 680.</p>

<p>Columbia & SEAS together have an entering class of something over 1400. That means that the median scores tell us that 350+ students have a CR score at or under 690 -that means that for every 5 Barnard students with a score at or below the 680-690 range, there are 6 Columbia students with scores in that range. </p>

<p>So if you were to plot everything out on graph, you would see two overlapping humps, one rather small and one very large. The entire Barnard hump would likely sit inside the larger Columbia hump, off-center to the left. </p>

<p>That doesn’t even address the issue of selection bias.
Selection bias comes from the fact that Columbia considers test scores as “very important” in the admission process, whereas Barnard considers them only of secondary importance. So a single factor comparison is meaningless if one set of students is cherry picked for that particular quality. For example, past data suggests that Barnard students come in with a higher average unweighted GPA (3.83) than Columbia students, though Columbia apparently chooses not to report GPA data these days. So you are comparing one metric and ignoring another, in the context of the ignored metric being likely of higher importance to the school that does choose to report it. </p>

<p>In other word, Barnard passes over many higher scoring applicants in favor of those with greater strengths on other selection criteria. If they merely wanted to manipulate the scores on paper, they could do so easily (we know from anecdotal reports on CC that they reject students whose scores would put them in the top 25% quite routinely).</p>

<p>But that’s not what Barnard is about.</p>

27

<p>As a grad student in a statistics-heavy program and a statistics consultant (at Columbia :D), I’m here to cosign calmom’s post. (In fact, I was coming to make the same post, but she beat me to it.) You can’t tell whether a difference is significant just by eyeballing it.</p>

<p>In any case, I’ve TA’ed for the psych department at Columbia and I had both CC and Barnard students in my class. I can’t tell the difference - just a bunch of bright, hard-working students. I’m going to throw a coin in the hat for Barnard, though, simply because I went to a women’s college myself (not Barnard) and am now pursuing a scientific career (although it’s in the social sciences). Something about being surrounded by so many brilliant women in leadership positions all over the place really is inspiring to a young woman. There are usually more female professors at women’s colleges, and the college leadership (president, provost, deans, etc) are more often women too. Plus the student body president, presidents of clubs, movers and shakers on campus…all women. For some students, it makes a huge difference. I’m not sure I would’ve ever thought about getting my PhD in a scientific field without going to a women’s college, although of course there’s no way to tell. But being exposed to so many female professors made me think I could do it, too.</p>

<p>I’ve gone onto Barnard’s campus several times for library usage or something and as silly as this sounds, there’s something kind of magical about being in an all-women’s space. But, again, I am biased since I was a women’s college grad. Columbia is amazing as well (it’s always been my dream to be here), and I’m sure Georgetown is an amazing place too. Just throwing in 2 cents.</p>

<p>I’m applying to be a graduate hall director at Barnard for the next academic year - I’m interviewing tomorrow. I hope I get it; I loved being an RA and I’d love to interact with the Barnard students and help them have a great college residence life experience like I had :D</p>

28

<p>calmom, of course there are students with similar stats at both schools. (Of course, as you and I both know, it may not be the same kid with those stats. The 1250 white, upper-middle class girl at Barnard may be very different than the 1250 girl at Columbia who might be a recruited athlete, etc.) That doesn’t change the fact that Columbia College is more selective. By the way, I have access to several school Naviances and the gpa is uniformly higher for students accepted at Columbia than Barnard (and Columbia also routintely rejects students who have top scores-- isn’t that true of almost all selective schools?). To be fair, we could also bring up xiggi’s criticism of Columbia and how it doesn’t count the General Studies stats in the admissions pool. But, frankly, what is going on here is that there are a lot of women who won’t even consider a women’s college-- even one as integrated as Barnard-- and it means that the women’s colleges are wonderful finds for the young ladies who do attend. Yes, they may be easier regarding admissions, but that doesn’t make them easy institutions. I will say, though, that I know of quite a few young women who ruled out Barnard because of this debate and also, frankly, because of what is perceived as a chip on the shoulder of so many Barnard grads. The defensiveness about their school comes across in a way that is not found among grads of other women’s colleges. </p>

<p>OP, I would actually urge you to let your daughter decide. They are both fine institutions and she can get a wonderful undergrad education at both and could attend either for grad school. (Georgetown and Columbia both have top grad programs in international affairs). I would let her visit and talk to professors in her field of interest. I might even encourage her to ask about internships and about the feasibility of eventually taking grad courses (since you mentioned she may eventually be planning on earning a Master’s degree). </p>

<p>Congratulations to your bright daughter!</p>

29

<p>"If she wants to study intl relations, really, the choice should be Georgetown. "</p>

<p>Yup. Go Hoyas!</p>

30

<p>

That really is true. My daughter was not a science major, but I know she was inspired and almost awestruck when she took a seminar co-taught by two eminent women scientists as a freshman - that inspired her to follow up by taking her lab science from one of them the following year. I was always impressed by the warm and cordial relationship that the Barnard profs seemed to have with their students – most were very welcoming and friendly to parents, too! (I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with several over the years – my d. was always enthused about introducing me to her profs.)</p>

<p>Good luck with your job interview!</p>

31

<p>“The most material thing that has changed, as it potentially pertains to this issue, is that Columbia’s admit rate is now single digits, with stats to match. The type of people who are there may be somewhat different from when you attended.”</p>

<p>Not necessarily so. Students apply to three times as many school as they did back in 1983, so the mere fact that the accept rate is lower today has no relation to the relative quality of the student body 28 years ago. Also, the SAT has been re-centered since and the universe of test takers is contructed very differently, so you cannot compare those stats.</p>

32

<p>

You do realize that Barnard women play on the Ivy League teams and are just as likely to be recruited athletes as Columbia women, right? I mean… your characterization is rather crass. </p>

<p>

Which is unfortunate, given the fact the GS students are generally the smartest and most capable in the school. (An observation that should come as no surprise to anyone interested in studying neuroscience).</p>

33

<p>calmom, Sigh! I wonder if you realize what a disservice you are doing to Barnard in these posts? Yes, Barnard women have lower SATs and the school has a lower admit rate than Columbia. It is what it is. (And it has nothing to do with what team they play on. The Barnard 1250 is at the middle of the first year class. The Columbia 1250 is in the bottom 25% and probably had something extra to make her attractive. Traditionally, recruited athletes are often admitted with lower scores.) My kid attends a wonderful lac that also has a lower admit rate than Columbia. She wouldn’t have applied to <em>either</em> Barnard or Columbia College for the world. She didn’t want a big school. She didn’t want an urban environment. She didn’t like the kids or atmosphere at either school. She wanted a bucolic, idealistic lac and that’s where she went. I respect that and accept that. I don’t twist and turn to argue that there are kids here who could have gone there. In the end, it makes it look like the student body really just isn’t confident in who they are. It comes off as defensive. It is something that keeps coming up with Barnard that doesn’t come up with Wellesley or Smith, for example, and it comes off negatively.</p>

34

<p>Ack! Correction: My dd attends a lac that has a <em>higher</em> admit rate than Columbia’s stated 10%.</p>

35

<p>No, I do not do Barnard a “disservice” by pointing out the fallacy of simplistic thinking. </p>

<p>It is NOT true that “Barnard women” have lower SAT scores than Columbia students. Some Barnard women have very high SAT scores. The very top range scores of Barnard women is the SAME as Columbia students – the highest scorers at Barnard have an 800 on the test, and no one student has any higher than 800. If a Barnard woman who has a combined score of 2350 on the tests is sitting in a classroom with a Columbia man who had 2180, then that particular Barnard woman had a higher score than that particular Columbia man. </p>

<p>What the statistics tell you is simply the range of scores of the middle 50% of students. 25% have scores higher than that range. 25% have scores lower. We don’t know how far down the tail end of the distribution (bottom 25%) goes because that data isn’t published.</p>

<p>

Barnard students DO attend classes at Columbia. There is no “could have” – they are there. No one cares about SAT scores after the first midterms. There is no difference between grading standards at Barnard or Columbia and there is no difference in class between the capabilities of Barnard and Columbia students. The main difference between Columbia and Barnard is the core – it creates a common bond among Columbia students via a very structured shared educational experience.</p>

36

<p>IMO the point is not whether the printed SAT differential is significant statistically, or if there’s a valid explanation for it. Its whether the published SAT differential is significant socially. Here on CC much time is spent parsing and “ranking” based on published SAT and admissions rate differentials much smaller than these published differentials. IMO some material subset of the greatest parsers will attend Columbia, because it is now in that league where the most extreme prestige cravers are circling. To a greater extent than when Apollo6 attended. IMO a subset of people with such value system are the ones most likely to make distinctions on this basis.</p>

<p>However the overwhelming majority of the “greater Barnard community” who post on CC say that in practice this is not an issue.</p>

<p>“Not necessarily so.”
Perhaps not necessarily, but it is the case in this instance. Columbia College is more “prestigious”, relative to other colleges, now than it was then. That’s why they so adamantly wanted to go coed in the first place, other colleges were eating their lunch and they had been losing ground.</p>

<p>US News ranked columbia #15 in 1983. Last year they ranked it #4. On other current threads on CC, students are actually debating whether to attend Princeton or Columbia. Such discussion did not happen when I was applying to colleges, in my circle at least.</p>

<p>I think this probably does change the kind of people who go there. I’ve had some evidence that suggests to me some subset of the recent crew, at least, is rather proud of their school’s entrance profiles, and territorial of same, and express such in an inappropriate manner that can be offensive to others. But almost all other members of the Barnard community on CC have seen none of this whatsoever.</p>

<p>“It is something that keeps coming up with Barnard that doesn’t come up with Wellesley or Smith, for example, and it comes off negatively.”</p>

<p>If Wellesley students graduated with MIT diplomas, and Smith students graduated with Amherst diplomas, and they were on the campuses and in the classes of these other schools to the same extent, I’m pretty sure it would come up there too. But they don’t. Barnard students derive tremendous benefit from it being an affiliate college of Columbia, this is the cost IMO (though nearly all others on Barnard CC perceive no cost whatsoever).</p>

<p>Crystal ball: Juillet, Prof. Barnard College. It could happen.</p>

37

<p>

That may be true, but that mindset runs across the board. If you look at “chances” threads for Barnard (or any other highly selective LAC), then you certainly see students who are overly concerned with test scores. Keep in mind that many Barnard attendees are students who applied to and were turned down by Ivies. Also, Barnard has gotten much more selective over the years as well, statistically – I remember about 10 years ago when it was taking around 65% of its applicants (and Columbia was probably taking at least 25%). </p>

<p>I haven’t found those numbers, but here’s a chart showing Yale’s figures from 1976-2001 - <a href=“http://www.yale.edu/oir/book_numbers_updated/D7_Summary_YC_Admissions_1979_2001.pdf[/url]”>http://www.yale.edu/oir/book_numbers_updated/D7_Summary_YC_Admissions_1979_2001.pdf&lt;/a&gt; – you’ll see that 10 years ago, they were accepting roughly 18% of applicants.</p>

<p>I’d also point out that one reason Columbia’s admission rates & rankings have tightened is simply that they started taking the common application – immediately increasing its app rate. The same thing happened with Chicago – they were accepting 40%+ of students in years before my d. applied, admission went down to about 35% the year my d. was accepted (5 years ago) – last year it was down to 18%. But that doesn’t necessarily change the quality of students who are admitted – it just means that more applications are ending up in the reject pile. </p>

<p>This is all a marketing game by the colleges – one which also drives up the price that colleges can charge, I’d add. (Simple supply & demand – the harder it is to get in, the more parents are willing to pay once their kid does get accepted ). That in itself changes the dynamic on campuses toward a more affluent student body, especially at urban campuses like Columbia. </p>

<p>So yes that does change the student body & culture somewhat, but that is not a change that is limited to Columbia. And some things don’t change – my d. was surprised when she arrived on campus at the impact of athletic recruiting on the school. I doubt that there are fewer athletes on campus now than there were 5 years ago – the phrase “Ivy League” still signifies an athletic conference. (And athletes face a set of prejudices on their own – the “dumb jock” stereotype – one which was resurrected in this thread by the misguided assertion that only a recruited athlete could get into Columbia with a 1250 SAT.)</p>

<p>I think you are right that it probably does create a little more of a cultural difference between Barnard & Columbia, in the sense that prestige-obsessed students are far less likely to choose Barnard if accepted to higher-ranked colleges – given the other basic math fact about women’s colleges that seems to elude those who pick their colleges by the admission rate (i.e., than an all-female application pool is by definition roughly half the size of a co-ed pool). But that’s probably less of a cultural difference than the one that has existed all along by virtue of Barnard’s being a women’s college.</p>

<p>Finally, I agree with you – Julliet sounds like she will make a wonderful Barnard prof some day!</p>

38

<p>ah calmom, there you go again with the insults! “one which was resurrected in this thread by the misguided assertion that only a recruited athlete could get into Columbia with a 1250 SAT” Nope, I didn’t say that. What I said was that a student applying with a 1250 to Barnard is in a good position, firmly in the middle of the accpeted student pile while a student applying with those numbers to Columbia is below their 25%. That student is more likely to have had a hook for Columbia to find her attractive. </p>

<p>Like I said, the simple truth is that the students from our school who attend Barnard are not the ones who are competitive for Columbia. According to Naviance, the ones who are competitive for Columbia are generally applying to Harvard and Yale. The ones applying to Barnard are applying to NYU. They are all fine schools but, no, they are not equally competitive. </p>

<p>By the way, one of the other things I find amusing about your argument that Barnard’s scores are not significantly different from Columbia’s is that Barnard’s scores then also become not significantly different from a student accepted at a school like Towson, who we would normally say is well within the average range. (CR: 490 - 570, M 500 - 590, W 500 - 580). </p>

<p>Like I said, you are doing the school a terrible disservice. The attitude here comes off as defensive and really unsure of what their school is, an all-women’s liberal arts college associated with Columbia. I was very honest and very fair with the OP but I will reiterate that the one thing my relative truly disliked about Barnard was the cattiness of the women. My relative attended all-women schools, has plenty of female friends and is quite accomplished in her field and the criticism was isolated to Barnard so I do think there is something to it. I would be very hesitant to spend the kind of money that Barnard costs to have to deal with people who are so defensive of their institution.</p>

39

<p>

</p>

<p>I believe the short answer is, “Barnard”.</p>

<p>In all the focus on the relationship between Barnard and Columbia, the discussion has all but ignored the relationship between Georgetown CAS and SFS. As surely as there are a few boorish snobs at Columbia who fancy themselves superior to Barnard women, you’re likely to run into a few boorish snobs in the SFS who fancy themselves superior to students in the GT CAS. So the more important practical difference is that, among the divisions of Columbia University, there are no significant curricular borders between science and IR, but at Georgetown, there are (since they are in separate schools).</p>

<p>Furthermore, Columbia is one of America’s top 10-15 research universities in both political science and in many areas of natural science, in addition to having a top-5 undergraduate program in IR. Georgetown doesn’t have nearly the same breadth. For example, consider the NRC’s assessment of these two schools in Neuroscience and Neurobiology:
[NRC</a> Rankings Overview: Neuroscience and Neurobiology - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-/124747/]NRC”>http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-/124747/)
There’s a fairly big spread between the two in this field. In Math or Physics, the spread is much greater. Granted, the NRC assesses graduate programs, but the undergraduate quality is bound to reflect significant differences. Both schools are good but I think you’ll find smaller classes, better facilities, and more distinguished faculty (in the sciences if not in IR) at Columbia/Barnard than at Georgetown.</p>

40

<p>

I said a score differential that is less than one standard deviation apart is not significant. That statement is practically tautological. Again, standard deviation on the SAT is 110 points. If we had more data we could calculate the SD for all matriculating Barnard students, and the SD for all matriculating CC students – but in order to do that we would need the information that the colleges don’t give us. We would need to have mean score data, rather than median data, to even begin to do that. About the only thing we can infer from the midrange is that the SD for Columbia students is at least 90 points, if we make the assumption that the median closely tracks the mean. (Actually, however, the tail end of the distribution is almost certainly much longer because of the fact that no one can score higher than 800 points, but many students can score much lower than 690, so it is also highly likely that the mean numbers are somewhat lower than the median). If we go with that assumption – SD for Columbia=90 – the difference in reported score ranges still don’t rely to the level of “significance”. </p>

<p>I don’t know what your point is in providing Towson scores, given that a CR score of 490 is 200 points lower than a CR score of 690, which is a 1.8 to 2.2 SD away from Columbia, depending on whether you want to go with the CB reported general SD of 110 or my hypothesized SD of 90. So obviously a score range that is 2x SD’s would be highly significant – leaving aside the question of selection bias and the dubious value of test scores in the first place. (The best real-world info we can probably draw from that is that average parental income for Towson students is probably much lower than for Columbia or Barnard students).</p>