Haverford vs. Barnard vs Smith

I wouldn’t make this harder by adding in visits to the WL colleges that she may not get into. I’d focus on the ones that have accepted her and spend the time needed for her to asses fit. And I agree with the above poster that the Haverford Customs Week is a fantastic start because of the unique way it bonds the students on each hallway together. It’s much longer and more intense than the typical college orientation. By the end of customs they can’t say that they don’t know anyone.

As I was reading your description of what your daughter wants, her desires seemed to SCREAM Smith. Even after just the first sentence I was like “Well, any of those schools would be great for her, but that sounds like Smith” and then after the second sentence, I was like “Well, obviously Smith.”

Location: I have actually heard Smith (and other Five Colleges students) say that the location is one of the best parts of the experience. Northampton is an artsy, quirky town; the Pioneer Valley is known as “Happy Valley” because it is one of the happiest places with a good quality of life; and it’s got some of the most highly-educated people in the country there. I think many students assume that a college not in or near a big city is going to feel isolated, but it really depends on the town itself and how vibrant the college campus is. With four other small colleges nearby and a town that is recognized as an excellent place to live, I think she’ll find what she’s looking for there.

As for longer trips from home…I think that’s worth it if the atmosphere is really what she wants. She’ll have to do the trips home what, 3-4 times a year? (To get there, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and for summer break.)

She might be well-suited for Barnard and Haverford too, though. Barnard students are intellectuals and activists as well; I wouldn’t exactly call the vibe “down-to-earth,” but the students are friendly and serious about studies. There are not many commuter students at all - although a quarter of the students are from New York (and many are from the NYC area), those students still live on campus.

@EyeVeee – you’ve missed my point. Haverford is not harder to get into than Barnard if its average test scores are higher, that just means it uses different criteria for admission. My D. with the low test scores wasn’t at the bottom of her college class - she was at the top. Standardized test scores are an easy way for college ad coms to weed through applicants, and have the benefit of improving US News rankings - but they aren’t really a way to discern intellectual or scholastic ability. They are superficial, multiple choice exams that can be studied for, and test prep courses teach a lot of hacks and short-cuts. Barnard happens to place greater value on other criteria.

Barnard also has need-blind admissions,whereas Haverford is now need-aware. Barnard also has a strong commitment to it’s HEOP/BOP programs which by definition is bringing in students with lower SAT/ACT scores. Barnard has a more ethnically diverse student body and a greater percentage qualifying for Pell grants. The most consistent correlation of SAT scores are the correlations of scores to family wealth and to ethnicity, so looking at score ranges for schools may provide a lot more information about the socio-economic and ethnic diversity than caliber of students.

You can’t say that a school that admitted 20% of its applicants this year is “more difficult” to gain admission that a school that admitted 15% of its applicants by looking at test score ranges. Tests scores are the easiest type of selection criteria for student to manipulate. They can attend test prep courses, retake the exams, etc. Obviously the school that accepts a fewer percentage of applicants is tougher to get into, especially when comparing private LACs – it’s simple math. Barnard currently turns away more applicants than Haverford.

That is not to say one school is better than the other. They are different.

I agree with @juillet – the OP’s daughter sounds like a good fit for Smith – as much as I would want to sing the praises of Barnard, it sounds like the OP’s daughter might find that environment intimidating. Bottom line, Barnard students are also Columbia U students – and this is not a prestige issue, but campus environment / academic experience issue. My DD was not looking for or fond of the idea of attending a small LAC; she wanted a mid-size to larger university. Barnard was acceptable to her because of its association with Columbia - not because of prestige (DD didn’t apply to Columbia) – but because of size and resources. So for my DD, that was a plus – but it sounds like OP’s daughter may very well prefer the more traditional LAC environment, given the reference to “intimate campus experience.”

^In addition to the above, let’s also remember that admissions rate is not a proxy for college quality or educational experience or the competitiveness of one’s peers. There are lots of schools with higher admissions rates for a variety of factors - maybe because they have lower name recognition than bigger schools, or because they are single-sex (Wellesley’s and Barnard’s acceptance rates are much higher than comparable top LACs), or a variety of other factors. My favorite example of this is always Lawrence University, a great little LAC with top-notch students and an acceptance rate in the 70-80% range.

Another example is looking at how acceptance rates have shrunk over time - Princeton’s acceptance rate went from 13% in 2006 to 6.5% in 2016; Duke accepted 22% of its applicants but now accepts only 9% today; and Emory used to accept over 40% of applicants but now accepts only 25%. Did these schools get twice as good in the intervening years, or did their students get twice as competitive? Nah, not really - it’s just now easier to find out about and apply to college than it ever was before, so students apply to more colleges in places they wouldn’t have considered before.

I’d argue that the diminishing acceptance rates are actually an indication of decreased quality of student body, at least potentially, because it forces the ad coms to make more superficial decisions and also to makes it more difficult for them to shape their incoming class, often forcing them to focus more on yield-prediction than on the quality the particular applicant. The same types of students are applying, but also an entire array of additional students, many of whom are not likely to attend who are accepted. So somewhere along the line very well qualified students who are great fits for the school and would love to attend are being waitlisted or rejected because their apps have been overshadowed by apps from students who have no intention of attending.

ED can mitigate against that somewhat -the ED pool is smaller and by definition consists of students who will attend if admitted; but of course ED excludes a whole class of capable students who need to factor financial aid into their college decisions.

I think University of Chicago provides an excellent example. The year my daughter was accepted, there was a 33% admit rate, down from 40% the previous year. Now it’s in the single digits – has Chicago gotten better? Or has the increase in popularity instead diminished some of the unique factors that made Chicago stand out? I don’t know, but I my guess is that some of what made Chicago stand out academically from its competitors may have dissipated along with the school’s increased popularity.

calmom, it’s funny that you should mention the “majoring in unafraid” prompt. That was the one Barnard essay that my daughter had trouble with. She’s many, many wonderful things but she’s NOT a risk-taker. She has to really push herself hard to take risks of any kind. This makes it hard to be as proactive as she probably should be, especially with anything that might involve an interview or the like. Maybe, as you say, this makes Barnard less of a match?

Obviously I don’t know your daughter, but mine is just the opposite – definite risk taker, it was always an issue from early childhood. (She won… we parents just had to learn how to get over it.). I’m sure not everyone at Barnard is like her, but at the same time Barnard is not an environment with a whole lot of hand-holding…and Barnard students do also have to navigate the whole Columbia thing. Plus NYC is not a “friendly” city. So your post only confirms my sense that she could find Barnard / Columbia / NYC intimidating.

I don’t think the Barnard admissions dept. makes very many mistakes in RD, so they must have seen something in your daughter’s application that made her seem like a fit who would do well there – and there are probably many incoming students who are choosing Barnard precisely because they want to gain the sense of empowerment that women’s colleges are reputedly able to bestow. So if your D. chooses Barnard… I think you should have faith in her. She could grow a lot in the coming years, and Barnard could be the place that provides the impetus for that growth.

But if she is leaning toward Haverford or Smith … then I don’t think you should discourage her.

I do think that college choice is not just about who the student is now, but who she wants to be in 4 years - and that can be a problem. My son chose a small LAC that seemed like a perfect fit for his high school self… but it wasn’t a fit for the 20 year old he became— and he ended up leaving school. None of us has a crystal ball but you also said your daughter is an activist, so perhaps she wants a place that will challenge her and take her out of her comfort zone.

How did your Barnard campus visit go?

She’s mid-visit right at Barnard right now. We did just do our Haverford visit yesterday and today, and I have to say, I think it might be a match. Don’t want to predict until the Barnard visit is done but - it was right in so many ways. First, the social fit was great. Here are my impressions: Haverford kids tend to be quirky, nice, very smart kids that seem quite grounded. Character seems to be a factor in admissions. These are kids that are not just high-achieving but want to make the world a better place, aren’t full of themselves, and look out for each other. As one student put it, “We take our studies seriously but not ourselves seriously.” My D liked almost every student she met at Haverford, could see herself being friends with them. She liked the presence of boys, too - especially the boys she met there, who seemed “chill” and “nice”. It is a better social fit, we think, than Smith, which is a little too alt for my D’s taste. She’s artsy and all, but basically a pretty normal kid. It seems like a good academic/ interest fit too - A brand new arts center is opening in the fall, called VCAM (Visual Culture, Arts and Media Center). We met the chair of the English program and loved her. Activism and social justice are integral at Haverford, as part of the Quaker culture, with lots of opportunities like the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship. There is a strong music culture, with school bands and several places to gig on campus, and an art house covered with student murals and filled with supplies to paint and draw anytime you want. The community seems very warm, welcoming and close. This could work! Stay tuned.

That’s great! I look forward to learning her impressions of Barnard.

@jennigarden I can tell you that your takeaways from your visit at Haverford are spot on with the reality. Very astute observations.

We have a friend(male) who loves it at Haverford. I think you can take classes at Swarthmore - (not sure if that is still true) so perhaps you can enhance your musical life by participating in a Swarthmore music group. Another friend (female) had a great musical experience there.

Yes, it is still true. Haverford is part of the _Bi-College with Bryn Mawr, and part of the Quaker Consortium with Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, and UPenn. Most overlap is between Bryn Mawr and Haverford due to proximity and seamless sharing between the two colleges, but you can definitely take classes at Swarthmore as well. There are regular shuttle buses between the campuses.

My D sounds very similar to your D (even similar locals) and loved Smith. Coming from the Bay Area, it’s not as alt as it might seem on paper or on CC—at least that was my impression and we spent a day there recently. There were plenty of “normal” kids. It’s liberal, sure, and LGBTQ friendly, sure, but it was much less edgy than I expected.

We didn’t know if the No Men thing was going to be an issue and it for her it turned out not to be.

Okay we’re just back from the Barnard revisit. Barnard is out, definitively. My D just didn’t like the people or vibe. She told me the admitted students came off as a bit pretentious, eager to show off their intellect, comparing what other schools they got into. The student guide said the atmosphere at Barnard is pretty competitive - and she wasn’t very warm. As for me, my impressions were a little better but still confirmed much of what she said. The student body struck me as academic, fashionable, ambitious, confident. Very, very cool - these women are going places. But: not, maybe, super warm or friendly, or filled with community spirit. The career and internship panel I attended spent a good amount of time arguing for the relevance of a liberal arts education - which to us is a done deal - but which shows, I think, that many of the accepted students here are considering a preprofessional track. (The Internship and career guidance at Barnard is indeed impressive, tho!) I can see how this kind of atmosphere would be perfect for some, but for my daughter it’s not a match.

She’s going to let it all percolate for a day or two, but here’s how it’s looking:

The critical requirements for my D’s school are: LAC with great academics, good social fit, access to dating (even if women’s college), not too remote, good English and art programs.

  • Not Smith: social fit isn't right and access to dating too limited.
  • Not Barnard, social fit isn't right.
  • Not Whitman, too remote.
  • HAVERFORD. Has all the essentials. Top-tier LAC with great academics, good social fit, coed, 20 min from big city, excellent English program and decent art program with new art center.

@jennigarden Another great perk to Haverford is the location - pretty bucolic campus with an arboretum but easy. quick access to Philly. Philly has tons of cultural opportunities - world class museums, great gallery scene (First Fridays), great music scene with many venues, fantastic dining.

Congratulations! And I am glad your daughter seems to have settled on Haverford – it was really hard for me as a former Barnard-mom to see fit from your description. You nailed it exactly with your description of the students: “academic, fashionable, ambitious, confident. Very, very cool - these women are going places.” – and every one of those adjectives describes my daughter to a tee. So a great match for one alum – but not so good for a prospie with a very different personality.