<p>Would anyone be able to shed light on the pros and cons of attending an all-girls school?</p>
<p>There’s is a lot of useful info about this on these boards…do a search.</p>
<p>But I will say that my D attended Barnard and graduated in 09. She had no intention of considering a women’s college until she found Barnard. She was drawn to it initially because of its affiliation with Columbia, strong dance program with strong academics, small liberal arts along with large research university opportunities and resources. She came to love the engaged and enthusiastic Barnard faculty (no TAs teaching classes!), the fact that women are not only encouraged but EXPECTED to take every opportunity and run with it (and are given the skills and resources to do so!), the close relationships she developed with classmates (including Columbia students). I suspect that only now, as she is attending another well-known university for her PhD, is she fully realizing the value of the “Liberal Arts College for Women” perspective she enjoyed as an undergrad. I know she was a TA for an undergrad science class at her present school, and was astonished at the fact that very few of the women in the class ever asked questions or engaged in discussion. </p>
<p>Another bonus is the focus on women’s health issues, and the excellent care provided by the clinic at Barnard. </p>
<p>The obvious “con” that most people bring up is the absence of men on campus. But that is not really an issue with Barnard…there are guys in Barnard classes and Barnard students find themselves on the Columbia campus a lot. And pretty much all student organizations are Columbia University Campus-wide ones (which, of course, includes Barnard students).</p>
<p>A few things to add to churchmusicmom’s excellent post.</p>
<p>For my D (who is now in law school) the women’s college also provided women friends. She had always been the type of girl who got along better with guys, and she wanted to change that. She longed for BFF’s, and she found them at Barnard. </p>
<p>Another positive is the role modeling. A far greater percentage of the faculty and administration (including the president) are female at a woman’s college than at a co-ed institution.</p>
<p>A third positive is the very enlightened stance the college has on sexual harassment. Naomi Wolf is just know writing about this problem at Yale and how it still exists there. This just couldn’t happen in the same way at Barnard, and I think because of its close affiliation with Barnard, this helps Columbia’s gender politics, too.</p>
<p>Another advantage for women is a greater proportion of female writers, artists and scientists included in the curricula of different departments. This is not pandering; these represent genuine women of achievement who are often overlooked in traditional canons.</p>
<p>Still another advantage is that positions at the school, like president of the class, are not reserved for men. It doesn’t always happen that men take these spots, but my son in graduating from Williams on Sunday and the class officers are definitely male.</p>
<p>For my daughter, there were no negatives, although this would not be true for all. She was shocked when she visited friends at Yale that the women deferred to the men in discussion. She expressed gratitude for the scrappy discussions women have together in Barnard classes.</p>
<p>There is also an alumni network that doesn’t automatically select a male candidate over a woman. Sadly, that does still happen all too often.</p>
<p>Generically, as a group, the main disadvantage is the obvious one. Barnard indeed has more guys around than most, however it is still not identically the same as a coed school since, for the most part, guys don’t live in your residence units which is where many relationships form at a coed school. IIRC the overall M-F ratio of the undergrad colleges is 40-60.</p>
<p>On the other hand, many perceived pros are reported above. Life often involves tradeoffs.</p>
<p>Great posts above … my daughter was not interested in either LACs or a women’s college … and ended up applying to Barnard ED and just finished her sophmore year. Barnard is a pretty unique place … a student gets the intimacy of a LAC while also being basically unlimited access to a great research university … a student also gets the support of a women’s college with a ton of men across the street and involved in the classes and day-to-day lives … not the same as being in at a coed school but as close as possible for a women’s school. </p>
<p>I’d suggest visiting … for my daughter she was expecting to apply to Columbia ED and have Barnard on her list after a bunch of other urgan highly selective research universities; and then we visited and Barnard jumped right to the top of the list … I think most women will have an immediate strong reaction to Barnard one way or the other if they visit!</p>
<p>I echo the above. D was not interested in these schools but fell in love with Bryn Mawr and Wellesley during visits, and applied to W early decision.</p>
<p>A lot of people get swayed by the fact that it’s a women’s college: “they get along better with men.” Well, face the facts that in the “real world,” there are women out there that you have to get along with. Anyway, Barnard is unique in that it doesn’t feel like a women’s college. Sure, its residence halls are mostly female (obviously) but there are men around because they’re visitors. And some male students actually live in Barnard housing. Plus, female residence halls are not all that different from single sex residence halls in other schools. Barnard students can also live in Columbia housing if they have a lot of Columbia friends. However, Barnard housing is usually better than Columbia housing.</p>
<p>Thank you for all this valuable insight.</p>