Can't make it to campus? Interview in your area!

Every year, Barnard's reach seems to extend farther around the globe. We are thrilled to see that Barnard continues to attract such a diverse group of women from so many different places. However, we know that being from Idaho, India, or even upstate New York can pose its challenges. For many Barnard applicants, it may simply be impossible to visit campus -- or return to campus more than once -- to take advantage of an on-campus interview.

Not to worry! Interviews are truly an optional piece of your application to Barnard. However, they are available to all first-year applicants and can be an excellent way for you to showcase a more personal side of yourself, alongside the academic and written materials in your application.

So what do you do if you can't make it here? As with all other aspects of the Barnard experience, you can benefit from our hearty and widespread alumnae network. The Office of Admissions works directly with alumnae around the world to conduct interviews that are more convenient for you. This is not only a great opportunity to have an interview when you otherwise couldn't, but it also gives you the chance to gather more information about Barnard from someone with yet another perspective.

Some important things to remember:

• Each applicant can only interview once, so be sure to choose the one option -- on-campus or off-campus -- that is best for you.
• Plan ahead! The deadline to request an alumnae interview is October 15th for Early Decision applicants and December 20th for Regular Decision applicants.

If you are going to be a senior this year, now's the time to sign up! The form to request an alumnae interview is live on our website, and our team of alumnae is waiting to meet you.

Request an Alumnae Interview Here

Should I send any additional recommendation letters?

When it comes to sending any recommendations in addition to the two we require, it is best to be very thoughtful and selective. Sending additional recommendations is not required, and for some students it is unnecessary. However, there are those students who feel their application would be incomplete without a letter from an additional person; the dancer who spends hours in the studio each night who wants to get her dance teacher to write on her behalf, the student who works a part time job and has grown close to her boss, the Editor in Chief of the school newspaper who works tirelessly on each issue and wants a letter from her newspaper adviser. 

A few things to carefully consider with additional recommendations:

1.       Is the person going to say something about me that hasn’t already been said? Do they know me in a way that is different from my other two recommenders?

2.       Is this letter really going to add to my application and help an admissions counselor understand more about who I am?

Remember to give your teachers ample time, and don’t be afraid to remind them of the deadlines. (You might do so in the form of a thank you!)  We look forward to reading what they have to say!

Who should write my recommendation letters?

Students often ask us who should write their recommendation letters, and this is always a tough question to answer because ultimately you know your teachers much better than we do! However, we can provide you with some things to consider when trying to decide who it might make sense to ask.

The first thing to do is make sure that the two teachers you chose fit into our requirements—they need to have taught you in eleventh or twelfth grade in a core academic subject (math, science, social studies, foreign language, or English). Next, think about the teachers you have the closest relationships with and the ones you think would have a lot to say about you. What classes have you most enjoyed? Is there something—a project, a paper, a presentation—that you are particularly proud of and would like a teacher to discuss? Have you experienced something with this teacher that makes you memorable? When considering this final point, think outside the box. While you might not think about asking your chemistry teacher to write you a recommendation letter if chemistry was a class you struggled with, that teacher may be able to speak to your incredible work ethic, your curiosity about unfamiliar material, and your positive attitude.

Ask yourself: what do I want the person reading my application to know about me, and which teacher will communicate that best?

What is HEOP?

If you attend a high school in New York State, chances are that one of your counselors has mentioned something called H.E.O.P. Maybe he or she has even recommended it as a good option for you. Barnard’s HEOP Scholars Program is the perfect fit for certain applicants, so we think it’s important to spend some time talking about what HEOP means and who it serves best.

Click here to watch a video about Barnard HEOP Scholars
Program, featuring Barnard staff and alumnae!

The acronym “HEOP” stands for the Arthur O. Eve Higher Education Opportunity Program, a program established by the New York State Legislature in 1969 to help economically and academically disadvantaged students pursue a college education. Several independent colleges and universities across the state have since developed HEOP programs, and Barnard was one of the first. Barnard’s HEOP program looks for students with all of the most “Barnard” qualities: enthusiasm, drive, curiosity, spirit, work ethic, etc. Our HEOP students exhibit all of these qualities and achieve academically, despite having experienced significant academic and financial barriers.

The HEOP Scholars Program at Barnard serves as an extra layer of support for these students in the transition to college, offering an intensive 5-week academic prep program during the summer prior to college, free tutoring at Barnard, laptop loans, a lending library, and a supportive HEOP staff. In addition, HEOP students, like all Barnard students, benefit from a generous financial aid package which meets 100% of a student’s demonstrated need.

In order to be considered for Barnard’s HEOP Scholars Program, you must first meet both the academic and financial guidelines. The financial guidelines are designated by the state and are the same at every HEOP chapter. The academic guidelines are different at each college or university and are based on the average GPA and SAT/ACT scores for each school. Please refer to our website to find out if you meet these basic qualifications for HEOP at Barnard.

Do you meet the guidelines? If so, you might be a good fit for Barnard’s HEOP Scholars Program. The Admissions and HEOP Scholars Offices will review your application and determine whether they would like to interview you for a seat in this competitive program. If so, you will be contacted for an interview with the HEOP Scholars Office.

If you don’t meet those academic and financial guidelines, don’t worry. Even if you don’t qualify for HEOP, you will still be considered for regular admission to Barnard. Even if you do qualify for HEOP, but are not selected for the program, you will still be considered for regular admission. The most important thing is to submit all of your application documents and financial aid documents on time, so that we can make the right decision for you.

Still have more questions about HEOP? Take a look at our website. Also, feel free to contact Kelly Sutton-Skinner, our HEOP Admissions Coordinator, at 212-854-2014 or ksuttons@barnard.edu. 

Will someone be visiting my school?

At most colleges during the fall months, admissions staff visit high schools around the county and around the world. At Barnard in particular, we travel to regions far and wide to visit with students and counselors in their schools, we staff college fairs (and sometimes our alumnae do as well), and we do some interviewing while we're away from campus. Unfortunately we can't travel everywhere we'd like to, so we have to make some tough decisions about regions, budget, and high schools we visit.  Still, our admissions staff really tries to cover a lot of ground!

If you're attending a school where we haven't visited in a while (or ever), do not despair. even though we haven't visited your campus, we will be able to learn about your school in other ways. Your high school will send us a School Report Form, completed by your counselor, along with a copy of your school's profile to ensure we are informed about the curriculum offered at your school, the grading scale utilized, and additional information like rank, average test scores, etc. If we haven't admitted someone from your school in recent years, it may mean we haven't found one who would be the right fit, so maybe you'll be the one.  After all, we don't admit schools, we admit students.

Check here for updates toward the end of the month of August after we've solidified more of our travel plans. We'd love to meet you!

Essay writing -- are there "right" responses?

Applicants often ask what topics will elicit the "right" responses in the minds of application reviewers and committee members in the Barnard Admissions Office.  The challenge in responding to that question is that, in reading lots of applications each year, we have seen many responses that have been repeated and even many that might be considered "cliche." It would be shortsighted, however, to say that a student can't take a new viewpoint on what's been heard before. In fact, she may take a topic in an entirely new direction, based on her own experiences.

Students within the same day-to-day environment may have very different reflections to share. And, those with dissimilar backgrounds can take very different turns in their observations. For the purposes of college admissions, those differing experiences (as highlighted in an essay or writing supplement), in addition to the experiences faculty may share in their recommendations, are not only interesting and useful, but they allow us to think about when and how students might make their mark in an academic classroom at Barnard. Through your writing, we gain some insight into who you are and how you think about things.

If you asked readers in our office, we'd probably agree on some basic things:

1. We'd like to see you write about something in which you can be a reasonable expert, or at least a topic that is familiar or has meaning to you, but doesn't feel like a research paper.  Often the closer you feel to a topic, the better you will be able to express yourself in your writing.
   
2. We would like for you to truly (really) reflect on the topic you are choosing.  Write your response and take some time to both answer the question and be thoughtful about why you chose this topic and how what you're writing about has impacted you.
   
3. We are not expecting to hear the wisdom of a 50-year-old, looking back on her life.  It is okay to not have all the answers and it's far better to write in your own voice, rather than in a voice you'd expect we want to hear.  Be genuine and authentic.

The Common Application is available: a soft launch.

For those who have been eagerly awaiting the launch of the Common Application this year on August 1, we imagine that because it's the first time you've applied to college, some of you may not realize what a big endeavor it has been for those involved.  The online form (used by 517 colleges this year and exclusively used by Barnard for, well, forever) is a brand new reconfiguration of the application.  Questions, format, delivery--pretty much everything is different this year for those member colleges and for the staff of the organization that's been working hard to put it all together. And, for the first time, the application is only going to be available online.  It's a pretty big deal.

We just put some final touches on our Barnard-specific questions (including some instructions we thought might be helpful as you fill them out) and expect to be able to release those and the writing supplement as early as next week. If you're eager to begin writing your responses to questions asked on our writing supplement, we encourage you to take a look at last year's supplement (posted here on our website for now).  The questions have not changed.  You will have a 250 word limit, so be sure to work on refining and editing your work to make sure we get to see your full response.