I looked it up and found the student teacher ratio was 10:1 but no details on if the average class size is below 30 or not. Compared to other liberal arts colleges, 10:1 feels like too big, but I really love everything else about Barnard. I want to develop close relationships with a lot of professors so I’m hoping I can have that opportunity at Barnard.
Barnard posts all its common data sets on line - you want to look at section I-3 for class size data –
So for example the most recent CDS at https://barnard.edu/sites/default/files/cds_2016-2017_1.23.17_0.pdf shows that 23.4% of class sections have 2-9 students, and 46.5% of classes have 10-19 students. Less than 12% of classes have 40 students or more.
Of course, the Barnard-only numbers are probably not fully reflective of the Barnard experience because of the relationship with Columbia. Statistically the numbers for small classes are probably driven up by the first year seminars and senior seminars – whereas most students are likely to take many classes designated as Columbia courses (including some that may actually be taught physically on the Barnard campus)
Same deal with faculty student ratio – a lot more faculty in the picture available for instruction, but also there will be Columbia students enrolling n Barnard courses.
My DD had a good mix of small and large classes and also formed close relationships with many faculty members. The advising system helped too – she never took a class from her first year advisor but remained close to her throughout her four years.
@calmom The Barnard members of my family tell me that their class sizes averaged 10-15, including upper level courses at Columbia. That said, in speaking to one of my daughter’s friends who is currently at Barnard, she said she liked some of her larger classes because you got to meet more students. All had discussion sections which she said were small and very good.
In an amusing aside, my daughter’s friend said she didn’t like one of her Russian courses as it had only 8 students and so she felt she was always on the spot!
My daughter also studied Russian and that was a fairly common size for a section, 8-12 students – although I think they also had a separate, larger lecture once a week. I think that there is enough flexibility that for most lower level courses a student can pick and choose. Larger classes at Columbia always had smaller tutorial sections as well. It really wasn’t an issue for my DD.