“Ok, show your work: why, in your view, are connections better at NU than Barnard?”
Barnard says it has 31,000 alumni, I couldn’t find the same stat on NU’s website, but other say sources say it’s around 200,000. On LinkedIn, the number of Barnard alumni and students is around 22,000, Northwestern is at 161,000. NU is a bigger school so you have to take that into account, and how many alumni come from the grad schools. ex - the NU school of medicine has 6500 alumni on L/I… And quality of connections is not only how many, but are they in the field you plan to get a job in, how helpful they are. That, I can’t really comment on for both schools.
My other statement is that Barnard is the better fit campus because OP wants a more urban campus and OP has visited and really liked the campus. You didn’t want me to defend this statement though, any reason or is it as obvious to you that Barnard is better for campus fit as it is to me that NU is the better choice for connections?
“there is no significant difference between those schools on those metrics: both schools will be excellent in both categories”
but the schools have different strengths and weaknesses, NU would be more pre-professional, larger, suburban, Barnard, smaller, in the city and a broad liberal arts and science education.