Over a little more than a decade, Barnard has transformed from a lesser-known all-women’s backdoor into a Columbia University degree into a prestigious college in its own right with the low acceptance rate to match (about 10%). Throughout this transformation, the college has always offered an outstanding education and community steps from the Columbia gates — it’s just super competitive now.
As Barnard has become increasingly competitive, the waitlist has followed the same trajectory. Most recently, Barnard offered 2055 students a place on the waitlist and 1567 chose to join. Only 148, or 7% of the initial pool, were eventually accepted. This continued a fairly steady pattern. A year earlier, for enrollment in the fall of 2023, 2144 students were offered a spot on the waitlist and 173 were accepted. For fall 2022, 2524 students were waitlisted and only 66, or under 3%, were accepted.
It is encouraging to see that Barnard uses their waitlist reliably, but the percentage of students admitted is very low. It’s not impossible, then, to get into Barnard off of the waitlist, but it is unlikely.
In order to pull off a Barnard acceptance off of the waitlist, you need to move quickly and strategically. What you do now matters, enormously, and will impact your chances of eventually getting in. In this post, we break down the steps that you need to be taking to increase your odds along with what you must avoid if you want to get in.
Receiving a waitlist decision is stressful. Contact us to create a plan for what comes next.
After you hear from Barnard about the waitlist, there are four steps that you need to take. Don’t rush to act, though, as you really only get one chance at improving your chances. It’s important that you play this out right.
Step One: Join the Waitlist
As part of your admissions decision, they have asked whether you want to be added to the waitlist. If you still want to be considered for admission to Barnard, you must respond. The waitlist isn’t a literal list, and Barnard won’t even look at the waitlist until soon before or right after the May 1 decision deadline, so it isn’t imperative that you jump to respond immediately. However, you should plan to respond within three weeks.
Step Two: Pick Another College
This is the most uncomfortable step. You want to get into Barnard, and keeping your hopes up is a good thing, but you shouldn’t be betting on a Barnard acceptance. The rate of admission off of the waitlist is quite low, less than 5% many years. Chances are that you won’t get in, so you need another plan.
We advise students to commit to their first-choice school that they were accepted by. Sometimes this is another dream school, and other times it’s a less exciting choice. We get that you want to be thrilled about where you will most likely go in the fall, but remember that transfer is always an option. Not committing to a school for next year, though, shouldn’t be treated as one. Reapplying as a first-year is a bad plan and rarely pays off in the ways students hope it could. Instead, pick a school and move on to Step Three.
Step Three: Update Barnard
Barnard doesn’t proactively offer waitlisted applicants much to go on as far as what they want to receive, but we know from experience and the admissions office’s own blog posts that they appreciate application updates, a new transcript if there are chances, and potentially even a supplemental recommendation. Last year they also allowed waitlisted students to submit a short essay expanding on their interest in Barnard. Below, we’ll address each of these.
Transcript
Request that your school send Barnard an updated transcript with your most recent grades, even if they have stayed the same since you initially applied.
Supplemental Recommendation
Did you submit additional letters of recommendation with your initial app? If not, now would be a great time to ask a supervisor, mentor, or club advisor to speak on your behalf by submitting a letter in support of your application directly to admissions. Provide your recommender with a PDF of the application you submitted to Barnard and a short “cheat paragraph” to give them a sense of what you emphasized in your application without requiring them to read the whole thing.
Barnard Essay
We treat this short essay as another “Why us?”, but you don’t want to simply repeat everything you already put in your application. Aim to go deeper, not necessarily broader. Focus your response on the specific program that you are most interested in, and share specific courses, professors, and opportunities that attract you to that program at Barnard. We also recommend reinforcing your interest in an all-women’s education. Yes, nearly all of the courses at Barnard are co-listed with Columbia College — and vice versa — so it’s actually rare that you’d be in an all-women classroom, but you need to want what Barnard offers. Namely, a learning environment crafted around women’s education and built to create leaders across all fields.
Letter of Continued Interest
Finally, there is the LOCI, which we’ll combine with the fact that you also need to connect with your regional admissions staff member if you have not already. The regional admission officer was the first person at Barnard to read your application, and is the most well-versed in who you are and why you were offered a spot on the waitlist. However, that does not mean that they are a resource for answering: “why?”
When you email your regional admissions representative, you are not going to ask them why you were offered a place on the waitlist nor what you need to do to get in. What you are going to share with them is a one-page letter of continued interest, or LOCI, that you may also have been instructed to submit through the applicant portal. If so, do both. This is truly a one-page letter, and it needs to follow a very specific format. Let’s break it down.
Opening
Even if you’ve connected with your regional rep before, remember that this is closer to an email to a potential boss than a note to a teacher. In the opening, you need to say, “Dear NAME,” and then 3-4 sentences reintroducing yourself as a waitlisted candidate interested in your particular major. State that Barnard remains your first choice, and that you will enroll if accepted (this is not binding, by the way). Then, state the purpose of this letter: to update and reinforce.
Update Barnard
Since you have the Barnard essay doing most of the “reinforcing” work for you, the bulk of this letter will be the update. You need to share 2-4 things that have happened since you submitted your application. These do not need to be awards, and whether they sound notable, or worthy of an update, really relies on how you write about them. A collaborative project you haven’t even turned in yet can be more interesting than a first place trophy if you write this well.
Reinforce Your Interest
Towards the end of your letter, you’re going to write two or three more sentences about how you love the Barnard community and educational experience, using specifics rather than making generalized statements.
Closing
Close by again saying that you will attend if accepted and thank the readers for their time. This is a letter, so end with “Sincerely,” or something similar.
Step Four: Wait
The final step is to be patient. It is unlikely that you will hear from Barnard until the first week of May, and most students accepted off of the waitlist will have to wait longer than that.
You should know, though, that Barnard is known for calling students on the waitlist to reconfirm their intention to enroll in Barnard before formally offering them a spot. Do not be surprised, then, if you get a call from a random number (likely not a New York City number) that leaves a message asking you to call back. This tactic by Barnard is strategic. To keep their acceptance rate as low as possible, they only want to offer waitlisted students a spot if they are 99.9% confident that they will enroll. While telling them that you will over the phone is not legally binding, it does give them additional confidence on top of your LOCI.
That doesn’t mean that not getting a phone call means that you won’t get into Barnard off of the waitlist, but definitely make sure your voicemail message is clear and professional.
You can get into Barnard off of the waitlist, but it doesn’t just happen. Like all the rest of the college application process, you need to be an active player in creating your future.
If you are ready to make bold moves towards Barnard, we can help. Email us to learn more.