Best and Worst

Colleges and Universities A-Z Barnard College
1

<p>I have a question for current students:</p>

<p>What are the best and worst aspects of living and learning at Barnard?</p>

2

<p>this is a great question! … any current or recent graduates?</p>

3

<p>I’m a rising senior at Barnard, and have recently felt compelled to come here and comment on my experiences.</p>

<p>As a pre-med bio major, I have fallen in love with Barnard’s biology department, research opportunities, and breadth in curriculum. I really do love many things about this school. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about the pre-health advising committee. They are unhelpful, discouraging, cold, and (as someone who is currently applying to medical schools) incredibly inefficient and slow. Do not come here expecting pre-med advising – you are own your own.</p>

<p>Which is totally cool if you’re into self-sufficiency! And if I do say so myself (not that I’m in a high position or anything… cough cough), Barnard’s student-run pre-health organization is wonderful.</p>

<p>People can feel free to ask me more questions if they’d like. I’m in a pre-med state of mind so that’s what I’m dealing at the moment, but I’m perfectly willing to answer any other questions.</p>

4

<p>I cannot offer first-hand experience with the pre-med advising, but I can say that my d’s suitemate seemed very happy with hers and she was quite successful in her application process…</p>

<p>So, there are some out there who are evidently happy with the system.</p>

5

<p>I will say that they just recently switched over to a new pre-health dean. I know several (well-qualified) people who have come out of meetings with her feeling entirely shot-down. The previous dean seemed to know what she was doing a bit better.</p>

6

<p>Ahh, that might explain it. Sad. Make some noise about that…I bet you could get someone to listen!</p>

<p>I do remember that the person I was talking about had to be assertive at one point…they did not think she had enough “clinical” experience to apply, but they did not know about a large part of her experience. After that, I think, things went well. But this girl was (is) very, very self-motivated. Studied like crazy for the MCATs for months and months, for example.</p>

7

<p>Believe me, I fully intend on giving them an earful… once I get into medical school. (:</p>

8

<p>I’m sorry to hear that the pre-med advising is so poor, especially since I’m planning on doing pre-med.</p>

9

<p>I think that preprofessional advisers tend in general to “hang crepe”. Do what they tell you to do with respect to your application, but take with a grain of salt their assessment of your chances. They may have been burned a few times in the past. My daughter did way better on her law school acceptances than she was told by the prelaw adviser to expect. (Actually she wasn’t told much of anything) She did however follow their instructions on what to do and everything turned out well.
Just remember they are better at telling you what to do than they are at assessing your chances at a particular school.</p>

10

<p>Also, I want to add that I spoke to my d last night and I was incorrect. Her roomie did NOT think the pre-med advising at Barnard was good at all. Her primary beef with them, I gather, is that they are not all that warm and fuzzy and/or encouraging. in fact they really will NOT support someone in their application if they are not, in the eyes of the advisor" going to be successful in the Med School admissions process. </p>

<p>Maybe the advent of this new pre-med advising dean is a good thing after all and change for the better will come about?? At any rate, as Mardad said (and he should know!!!), you should follow what they say to do but take their “chances” assessment with a grain of salt.</p>

11

<p>Mardad, I agree. churchmusicmom, that has been my experience exactly. It seems they’re largely concerned about the stats they’re asked to report, aka % of applicants from Barnard accepted into med school.</p>

<p>But moving on to better things! Rooms with views like this: <a href=“http://roomselection.barnardreslife.org/reviews/photos/98.jpg[/url]”>http://roomselection.barnardreslife.org/reviews/photos/98.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;