Barnard is the most famous all-women’s college in the United States. It isn’t famous just because it’s a top school for women, though. Barnard is simply a top college. Through its affiliation with Columbia University, Barnard students have access to nearly every resource Columbia has to offer, and then some. Students at Barnard also have unique opportunities and resources that are not available to other Columbia students. This long made Barnard a bit of a secret gem, but the secret is out. The acceptance rate has plummeted in recent years, and was only 10% for the Class of 2029. They have not released the admissions statistics for the Class of 2030 yet.
Before you can start work on the Barnard application, though, you need to make sure you have all the pieces in place to make an acceptance even feasible. For Barnard, the foundation is impressive grades. While Barnard does not require that you have taken any particular course distribution to be eligible for admission, they do expect you to have impressive grades in the hardest courses you have access to, both in the area you want to study and in subjects that may not come naturally to you.
Barnard does not report what a strong GPA is for admissions, but 96% of recently accepted and enrolled students reported being in the top tenth of their graduating class. Even if your school doesn’t rank students, it is pretty easy to tell if you are a leader in the classroom. If you aren’t, you need to become one before it’s time to press submit. Next, let’s talk about scores. Barnard is currently test optional, which means that you can decide whether to submit SAT or ACT scores.
While it is possible to get into Barnard without scores, it isn’t optimal. More than half, 54%, of recently accepted students submitted the SAT or the ACT, with two-thirds submitting the SAT. Strong scores underline an impressive application, so what is a strong score? For the SAT, we advise that our students aim for above a 1520. On the ACT, it means aiming for a minimum of a 34. If you cannot attain these minimums, we do not typically suggest submitting scores as they may undermine an otherwise impressive application.
Once you have your grades and scores, you need to decide how you are going to apply. Barnard offers either Early Decision or Regular Decision. We are strong advocates for applying somewhere Early Decision if it is your top-choice school and they offer it as an option, which Barnard does. ED to Barnard offers a significantly higher acceptance rate than regular decision — more than 3x the overall. For the Class of 2029, 33% of ED applicants were admitted. This is because Barnard wants students who are actively seeking out an all-women’s education, not those who are applying simply because they will graduate with a degree that says “Columbia University” across the top.
The next step after picking ED or RD admissions, and subsequently confirming the deadline you are aiming for, is actually writing the application. That is what we are going to focus on for the rest of this post. So, let’s get into it.
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For Barnard, the most pressing question is who you are. The second most pressing question is whether you truly want Barnard to be your next step. As we’ve said, they are very used to strong students unsure about an all-women’s education using them as a backup. And, honestly, they are over it. They only want to admit applicants who see Barnard as their ideal, not a back-up plan.
The two questions in the Barnard supplement are designed to help them suss out answers to both of the above questions. You’ll notice that neither is “what do you like about Barnard,” because anyone can compliment them and not really mean it. Instead, they want to go deeper. Both questions are required, and the first only allows for a very short response.
At Barnard, inquiry starts with asking bold questions about the world. What is one bold question on your mind and what about it piques your curiosity? (50 words maximum)
50 words is compact, 12 less than the paragraph above the prompt. However, we do not see that as an excuse to rush through this or to not build out a proper, story-centric response. The editing is, ultimately, the key. For this prompt, we love when students pick something to focus on that is related to their potential course of study, but it doesn’t need to be completely on the nose. For example, maybe you are interested in psychology. For this prompt, it is way more interesting to write about, say, the ways we can expand our self-knowledge through greater understanding of octopus identity than it is to write about a psychological theory. Don’t reflect on someone else’s findings, but put yourself in the action. Show your own brain at work puzzling through an idea, and your curiosity in action.
Then, it’s time to tackle the long supplement.
Barnard College is shaped by trailblazing women with a multitude of perspectives. Think of a woman - historical, fictional, contemporary, or personally significant - whose views or approach to problem-solving differ from your own, but who excels at bringing people together. What lesson from her approach would shape how you show up at Barnard both inside and outside of the classroom? (200-250 words)
It should come as no surprise that Barnard is interested in your relationship with women. This prompt, however, can easily turn into a response that is all about someone else without sharing much of anything about yourself. That would be bad news, so we encourage our students to approach it as a conversation — literally.
Barnard has had a prompt like this for a while, but they’ve shaped it over time to try and ignite the responses they want to see. This is why they specify focusing on a woman who has different opinions or approaches than you, but who emphasizes togetherness and community. As you try to brainstorm who to focus on, there are some people that are immediate no’s and many ‘probably nots.’ Do not write about a parent or relative, for example. Do not write about someone currently in the headlines for unsavory reasons. Most politicians, too, are out. As are most celebrities unless they are mostly famous for something academic or altruistic. Jane Goodall is fair game, but Kim Kardashian is not.
Once you have your woman, place yourself in proximity to them. Not in real life, but in writing. That could be through a real experience engaging with their work, or an imagined experience engaging with them directly. What if you met Eleanor Roosevelt at a coffee shop? What would you ask her?
You have a great amount of space for this supplement, so there really is room to build a proper story of you engaging directly with your subject and learning, or confirming, how you want to engage with others.
Towards the end of the supplement, with maybe the last 50 or so words, you are going to want to tie it firmly to Barnard. Where do you carry this imagined memory on campus and how does it impact how you show up for yourself and others? As you craft your ending, remember that your subject is not you. You picked them because they are different from you, and you can learn something from them. Whether it is outspokenness in the face of unfairness or listening even when it is uncomfortable, or whatever other trait you want to build and bring with you to Barnard, the ultimate answer to this prompt is growth. They want to see you growing, even from an imagined coffee date.
The Barnard supplement isn’t long, but it is singular. That is by design. You can’t borrow from other supplements to complete this one, but instead need to put serious effort into speaking directly to Barnard admissions. If they don’t get the sense that you are authentically interested in them, they won’t seriously consider you. So you need to do more than just feel it — you need to sell it.
We help strong students get into Barnard because we understand the importance of storytelling when making your case for admission. If you want to learn more, let us know.
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