<p>I never even dreamed of putting an all-womens college on my list, but Barnard is just so damn perfect. I have some guy friends, but I am not really close with them…I think this is because of the loser guys at my high school. So I always thought that college would be the time to finally get to know the male species in depth…but now I want to go to Barnard! Do you still interact with some guys?</p>
<p>With Columbia just across Broadway, Barnard offers you the best of both worlds-- a community of women and plenty of guys. Barnard women also do internships all over the city-which is also definitely coed. Some Barnard women can also live in Coulmbia dorms.--I'm not a student there but visited and researched the campus in depth with my D. I graduated from Mount Holyoke -- a much more isolated and in-depth all women's experience--I'm not sorry about that, though.</p>
<p>My D is at Smith and I've met several dozen Smithies. Virtually everyone, if you get them talking about how they came to Smith, will say something like "I never meant to attend a women's college but...." As Pyewacket indicates, Barnard is the "most co-ed" of the womens colleges. If you're interested, apply. Columbia had been my D's #1 on paper but after visiting, she did not even apply. But she did apply (and was accepted) to Barnard, which ranked #1 on her list for a couple of factors when she was making her decision.</p>
<p>i kind of disagree about barnard being the most coed women's school - what about scripps?
i'm one of the few women i know at barnard who really wanted to go to a women's college. for most people, this was the only one they even considered, because of the nyc factor (tons of coed colleges in nyc! lots of boys to meet) and of course columbia across the street.
in my barnard french class, i had more boys than girls; that didnt even happen in my coed public high school. you can join coed columbia clubs, you can even join a columbia sorority. lots of barnard women end up marrying columbia men.
however there is a huge difference in atmosphere on each side of broadway. barnard is soo supportive and caring about women and they really focus on specialized women's needs. often i wish the girls here weren't so focused on boys and think i would have done better at smith or wellesley, but i wasnt willing to give up new york, and really you can make it as women-only or coed as you want.
so basically, barnard is the best college ever.</p>
<p>Scarf, you can make a case for Scripps but Barnard is <em>so</em> integrated with Columbia that it's sui generis. Of course, Scripps is the anomaly in that it's on the West coast. You can take 100 young women considering Wellesley, Smith, and Barnard and depending on just how they balance their criteria, you'll get about a third going in each direction. You pointed out one of Barnard's major attractors: NYC. You weren't willing to give it up...case closed. Those who like NYC but don't love it may come to a different choice.</p>
<p>I had never planned on attending an all women's college, but had never been against the idea either. It just seemed that some of the schools I loved happened to be all women. I attended an all women's school and hated it, but NOT because it was all women. </p>
<p>It is great to be able to say something and have it be understood by other women. In the state school I am attending now, ( I will be transferring to smith at the end of the month) it can be very annoying to say something 'feminine' without being criticized by every male in the class. For example, a few weeks ago, I said something along the line of, "women still dont get paid nearly as much as males. Think of wal*mart..the highest paid female only makes 75% of what the highest paid male does. Its the glass ceiling effect because i-" and the guy next to be interrupted, "uhh..I hate when women complain about not getting paid enough. They have the same rights as men. Plus, women should stay home with the kids anyway". It was pretty annoying. It IS important to hear what 'the other side' has to say, but at co-ed schools, its very hard to talk about female issues unless you are in a 'women's studies' class. At a women's college, you really feel empowered.</p>