.png)
Margaret Anderson graduated from Columbia University in the spring of 2018. She now works with Admissions Angle students to conceptualize and refine personal statements and supplemental essays.
I'd never heard of Barnard College until I showed up as a Columbia undergrad student. Founded in 1889, the school is named for Frederick A.P. Barnard, a former Columbia president who'd unsuccessfully pushed for the university to admit women. Columbia and Barnard have coexisted, not without a little tension, ever since.
Towards the end of my time as an undergrad at Columbia, Columbia’s campus politics grew increasingly polarized and its mental health epidemic reached an all-time low between 2017 and 2018. Barnard became my little oasis towards the end of my undergraduate career. I would escape Columbia’s notorious stress culture by simply crossing the street on Broadway.
At Barnard, I experienced a different vibe. Studying at Barnard Library in the Milstein Center, I found librarians who were more caring and attentive than the larger, more anonymous atmosphere at Columbia’s Butler. Over four years, I dabbled in many different departments, including Urban Studies, Hispanic Studies, Religious Studies, Philosophy, Gender Studies and more. I ended up taking several Barnard courses along the way, since Columbia and Barnard use the same course directory, with open enrollment between the two schools.
Compared to Columbia, Barnard seminars felt a little more emotionally engaging. There was more care given to the way things were said, with real attention to respect, cultural awareness, and collective uplifting. I often left these seminars feeling like I grew at the academic and the soul level. At Columbia, seminars sometimes felt individualistic and competitive, with more energy directed toward proving a point or coming out on top. Almost ten years after college, many of the relationships that have stood the test of time are with Barnard friends.
For students and families going into application season now, Barnard deserves serious consideration as you build your college list. If your student is interested in Columbia, New York City, women’s colleges or top liberal arts programs, Barnard is a solid target or reach option. As an undergrad, I was surprised by how much access Barnard students have to Columbia, through shared classes, housing and interconnected campus life. If Columbia is your top choice, Barnard offers a version of that experience many applicants don’t realize exists.
Greek Life and Housing
I began to meet more friends at Barnard when I rushed a sorority sophomore year (a process I wouldn’t necessarily recommend). When I joined Columbia’s Alpha Chi Omega (AXO), I was surprised that probably a third or more of our members were Barnard students. A Barnard student was the AXO president, and other Barnard students made up much of AXO’s leadership team. Barnard students were even able to house directly at CU’s Alpha Chi brownstone.
Beyond Greek life, Barnard students have free access to all of Columbia’s clubs and organizations. Many competitive ones require applications, and Barnard students go through the same process as any other Columbia applicant, with no separate track or disadvantage.
When it comes to housing, Columbia and Barnard have separate lottery systems, though each school takes a small number of students from each other in every housing cycle. If a Barnard student joins their friend group at Columbia, they enter with the same lottery number and occasionally end up living in places like the coveted East Campus, with views of Morningside Park, the Manhattan skyline, and Columbia’s stunning campus architecture. The housing pool overlap is not common, but it creates tension when it happens. Columbia’s housing lottery is ultra competitive, competitive enough that I saw friend groups fall apart during the process. A bad lottery number meant the difference between a hot, mini room on the second story of an old building and a renovated, air-conditioned suite somewhere like East Campus. Outside of the regular lottery, Barnard students can also live in Columbia’s special interest housing if accepted to programs like Casa Latina or Greenbourough.
Not Everyone Loves Barnumbia
Barnard was originally considered one of the “Seven Sisters”, the group of Ivy-equivalent women’s colleges on the East Coast. Today, Barnard is the only women’s college with this special kind of relationship with an Ivy League counterpart, known by students as Barnumbia. Most Columbia and Barnard students see it as a good thing: a reciprocal relationship that opens up more opportunities on both sides.
Not everyone agrees. A small number of Barnard students say they came for the Barnard experience specifically and never wanted Ivy League overlap, including sharing classrooms with Columbia students. Students on campus for the women’s college experience do not enjoy the odd man enrolled in their classes.
The Columbia student naysayers of the Barnumbia relationship are slightly more common. Columbia College and the School of Engineering are the only schools with a 4% acceptance rate, while Barnard’s admission rate now hovers around 9%. That five-point gap impacts the student body’s reputation. The gap was even wider when I applied. Barnard’s admission rate in 2014 was 24%. When I was on campus, that acceptance gap made some Columbia undergrads protective of their Ivy League status, creating real tension. Some Columbia women I knew argued that Barnard’s presence skewed the dating pool, with women outnumbering men on campus.
These were some of my experiences and observations. But feelings aside, here’s what the relationship actually looks like on paper, because these are the mechanics that matter when you’re building a college list.
Shared Classes, Shared Faculty and 4+1 Programs
As mentioned, Columbia and Barnard share a course directory. Every year I attended Columbia, enrollment time meant struggling to get into top choice classes. Waitlists were huge, and seats with popular, highly rated professors were hard to land (students would scramble for seats with professors who have “gold and silver nuggets,” from the Columbia Underground Listing of Professor Ability, indicating positive student ranking). I still have nightmares about the process. Barnard students became real competition for those spots. For Barnard students themselves, course access is a clear advantage.
Barnard professors are also tenured by Columbia University, and teach at both institutions. Barnard and Columbia share a few of the same departments. Math majors at Barnard will do all of their major-related coursework in Columbia’s Math Department, while all architecture majors at Columbia will do their major-related courses at Barnard’s Architecture Department. If you are an aspiring architecture major applying to Columbia, it is important to research Barnard’s architecture program well and make sure that you’d be okay attending Barnard for the majority of your classes. Architecture was a major I’d considered as a middle path between my visual and liberal arts interests, and Barnard’s department dissuaded me personally from pursuing architecture.
Columbia’s Core Curriculum, a series of required classes on Greek philosophy, classical literature and Western civilization, is one of the most well-known aspects of the undergraduate experience. I found it incredibly restrictive. My experience varied drastically depending on which professor I got, since section assignments are totally randomized. Landing a highly rated, tenured Philosophy or English professor for freshman Lit Hum or sophomore Contemporary Civilization is unlikely.
Most of my friends also found the Core to be limiting. I couldn’t pursue pre-med or STEM, because two of the four to five classes I took freshman and sophomore year were mandatory Core classes. After that, I still had to choose a major. My friends who were premed had no additional wiggle room outside of the their premed and core courses.
Barnard has its own required curriculum, called the Foundations Curriculum. Unlike Columbia’s Core, it isn’t classical literature. It allows one course to fulfill multiple Foundations requirements, giving students more flexibility.
Barnard students also have access to special 4+1 programs, where they complete their undergraduate degree at Barnard and a master’s degree from Columbia in just five years total. Options include a master’s in public health from the Mailman School of Public Health. Barnard students can also pursue an undergraduate engineering degree through Columbia’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS).
Sports, Dining Halls and Graduation
Barnard students are the only women’s college students who get access to NCAA Division I athletic opportunities at Columbia, through the Barnard-Columbia Athletic Consortium agreement. That means access to top coaches and training facilities. Non-athletes can also train at Columbia’s Dodge Fitness Center, including a highlight of my time at Columbia, the fitness class pass, with daily classes ranging from Kickboxing to yoga and Zumba.
Columbia and Barnard students have open access to each other’s dining halls. Barnard’s Hewitt became my own escape from John Jay and Ferris, and campus lore says the food there might even be better. Hewitt also offers a wide variety of halal and kosher options, which draws students from both schools. Columbia students also show up for the pizza station and made-to-order burgers.
When it comes time to graduate, Columbia and Barnard separate. Columbia hosts graduation on campus, while Barnard historically holds its ceremony at Radio City Music Hall. Notably, Barnard students wear the same light blue robes as Columbia students, and Barnard degrees are conferred by the Trustees of Columbia University. Some students consider a Barnard diploma synonymous with a Columbia diploma. Many Barnard graduates simply list Columbia on their resumes, which remains a point of contention between the two student bodies.
Some Benefits of Barnard
In terms of name recognition alone, Columbia carries more weight. But in 2026, college decisions shouldn’t be made on name alone. I had a student admitted to Princeton last year who chose the University of Toronto instead, based on program-specific opportunities and a postgraduate job already lined up. Major-specific programming and a clear path to employment matter in a different way than brand name does. Columbia is a massive research university with 17 graduate schools and over 35,000 students enrolled across the university. Barnard, by comparison, has just over 3,200 students on campus total, and the smaller scale makes for a closer-knit experience, with professors and admin who often know students by first name.
In 2025, Barnard received a special accreditation from the Carnegie Foundation in recognition of its premier STEM research. The college offers a strong lineup of STEM programs, including the Clare Booth Luce Scholars and Beckman Scholars programs. Barnard and Columbia are both among the top producers of Fulbright Scholars nationally.
Following the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision that ended race-conscious college admissions (Affirmative Action), Barnard remains committed to building a diverse student body experience. 61% of students (Class of 29’) identify as students of color. Across the classes of 18’ through 25’, 91% of Barnard graduates left campus with a job secured.
Conclusion
For most students, Barnumbia is a source of pride, friendship and opportunity. Every prestigious school carries its own tension and complications if you lift up the rock of well-curated branding and name frenzy. It’s worth going into application season well informed of school nuance, rather than having rose-colored glasses about your college list.
Despite the tensions, as a Columbia alumna turned college admissions consultant, I recommend Barnard to my students considering a women’s college experience. The close-knit community, small class sizes, attentive professors, opportunity to grow your inner-power, and ability to explore the Ivy League make it a strong undergraduate option.
