Hi all!
I was accepted into Barnard and UC Berkeley, and I am currently deciding between the two.
A bit about me:
-applying for poli sci/international affairs and classics
-finances are not a concern
-from New York City, and very much a northeast kid, but don’t really want to stay in the same city for college
-I find Barnard to be too small and Berkeley to be too large
Any advice would be appreciated!
I’d choose Barnard. Columbia makes it feel larger.
UCB to get away from NYC.
Look into FPF, Global Edge, a sorority, a theme house, or other group to make it feel smaller.
As far as size, the feel at Barnard is that of Columbia University as a whole. You’ll be taking classes, making friends and spending nights with, using libraries, dining halls, and gyms anywhere at Columbia U - including Barnard. My daughter even took summer studies abroad (after her freshman year) using a Columbia U grant/fellowshop.
She ends up spending much of her time at Columbia U, and 2/3rds of her closest friends happen to attend Columbia College.
So you should base it on whatever your other criterions are.
Hard to believe you don’t have a preference between two such different environments.
And that might be the ultimate deciding factor. I moved away from home right after school, and eventually even to another country - so for some people, this IS their way to go.
But on the other hand, my daughter is also a northeast kid, from the NYC suburbs. She was VERY conscious about wanting College to be an exercise in “independence”, thus actively pretending that Barnard was hours away, just like all of her peers.
I still remember mentioning before move-in day, that it would be easy to get something to her, if anything was not packed - and it was made clear to me that this was NOT going to be an option, that she did not want to have that “easy way”. She was going to manage on her own.
She did, and it worked for her - and then, towards the end of 2nd semester, the “newness” of it all started wearing off. I suppose, she had proven herself to herself - and she started to be more pragmatic (mature?) about being able to drop-by at home on the occasional weekend, or having a missing charger or warmer/lighter cloths dropped off at the curb by “Uber-Daddy”, rather than re-purchasing it in NYC just to prove a point. 