40 CommentsThe Y (which is very much not the YMCA).
Plimpton residents, you could have it worse. Barnard really, really, lacks space. A tipster forwarded us this “email [that] students received who are returning from time off, and (possibly) all transfers also.”
The email opens ominously:
Thank you for applying for on-campus housing and for your patience as the College waits to see if any additional space opens up for the Fall. At this point, we are still not able to offer you a room assignment.
Barnard Housing subsequently encourages these students to find an off-campus apartment, then a room at the 92nd Street Y. Finally, it bumps an old-fashioned SRO at the Brandon Residency for Women, whose rules read that male visitors are allowed “[o]nly on the first floor, in the main sitting room.”
We’re wondering whether students forced to live off-campus lose some financial aid, and we’re looking into it. (especially since the Brandon requires residents to buy breakfast and dinner every day.)
N.B. This is for students who took time off, and possibly transfers. Students who went abroad keep housing.
Update, 1:07 pm: We contacted Barnard Financial Aid, but they said that the director isn’t in, and will get back to us on Monday.
Update, 2:38 pm: Though Barnard Financial Aid hasn’t told us anything, we did find the below on Barnard ResLife. (emphasis ours)
Please note that housing options like The Bayit and International House are not considered part of undergraduate housing and are not part of the Barnard/Columbia Housing Exchange. Students who move into these locations would cease to be eligible for participation in the Room Selection process and would loose their guarantee of housing for future semesters. Additionally, students who choose to live in these locations would be classified by the Barnard Financial Aid office as living off-campus and would eligible for less financial aid.
Full email:
From: “Residential Life & Housing” <housing@barnard.edu>
Date: August 10, 2012 10:45:43 AM CDT
To: [redacted]@barnard.edu
Cc: [redacted]@gmail.com
Subject: Housing update
Dear [redacted]:
Thank you for applying for on-campus housing and for your patience as the College waits to see if any additional space opens up for the Fall.
At this point, we are still not able to offer you a room assignment. While the College may receive a few additional cancellations prior to the start of the academic year, we cannot predict if or how many spaces would open up for assignment. You remain on our Wait List (unless you contact us to let us know you’ve made other arrangements) and we will contact you via email if we are able to offer you a room assignment.
Students without a housing assignment are still encouraged to look for off-campus housing. Resources for finding off-campus housing include the Columbia Off-Campus Housing Assistance office (http://columbia.edu/cu/ire/ocha/) and the Roommate Finder on the Res Life Web Portal (http://barnardreslife.org/roommate-finder/).
The College has been able to confirm availability of housing at the 92nd St. Y (http://www.92y.org/Residence.aspx). If you contact them and let them know that you’re a Barnard student, they can offer you a special price. The Y offers flexible stay lengths, 24-hour security, kitchens on each floor, laundry, WiFi, maid and bed linen service, and access to the Y’s gym facilities. We have attached a brochure.
There is a limited amount of space available at the Y; so if you are interested, we encourage you to contact them as soon as possible. Please note that you would contract with and pay the Y directly (i.e. it would not be billed through the College). If you have questions about how this would work with financial aid, we encourage you to contact the Financial Aid office (finaid@barnard.edu).
Another option for off-campus housing that you may want to contact to inquire about availability is the Brandon Residence for Women (http://www.thebrandon.org/), which is located on the Upper West Side.
If you have already made other arrangements for housing this Fall and/or no longer wish to live in campus housing, we would appreciate you replying to this email to let us know.
Thank you,
Barnard Residential Life & Housing
Loading …
40 Comments
@Anonymous According to the Brandon Residency webpage, “You are welcome to have female guests stay overnight in your room for a $40 fee. You will need to fill out a form 24 hours in advance.”
@Lol Barnard
@BC Alumna There’s this interesting situation now where we see Barnard students complaining about Columbia not giving them Columbia housing, when Barnard as an institution boasts it’s lack of dependency and gradual independence from Columbia. Yes, it’s a part of the affiliates of the university just like General Studies, but students must remember that when they applied to Barnard, they filled out that application, which was only a Barnard application and not the Columbia one where students had to check a box that said “CC” or “SEAS”.
Going back to the age old “what on earth is this relationship” question, Barnard and Columbia—as students and as institutions—need to figure out what their relationship is and what exactly they can get from each other.
@Anonymous ……………………
wrong comment thread, my friend
@Anonymous The cheapest room at the YMCA (a “small double”) is $1,400 per month per person. So expensive!
@Anonymous Barnard won’t admit that they’re in deep financial shit – changing P.E. requirements in order to offer fewer classes, shutting down more dorms during winter break and charging for it, etc.
Most if not all Barnard transfer students are on little or no financial aid – this situation was probably the result of the reasons listed in the e-mails from Res Life, as well as over-acceptance in an attempt to get as much money as possible.
The administration is making preparations for a new administration/classroom building on campus- why they’re not trying to fix the housing shortage, I have NO freaking idea.
@Anonymous Sorry, this was supposed to be in response to Anonymous on August 2012 at 6:02 pm, about why they’re accepting so many.
@Anonymous Here, have an upvote. I appreciate your spelling.
@whoopsy …meant as a reply to “10 August 2012 at 1:09 pm “. ReCaptcha is hard.
@Anonymous what’s best about your world? barnard students always brag about how their administration is so caring, etc. compared to the columbia tyrants…….hmmmm
@those reslife fuckers When I had to cancel my dorming contract this last semester bc I was going on medical leave, reslife had me sign the cancellation document, THEN said “oh sorry there’s just one change to that contract… you won’t be guaranteed housing if/when you come back.. we just haven’t printed new versions of this yet”
… fuckers.
@Anonymous seems unenforceable…how can they say you agreed to that when it wasn’t in the contract you signed?
@Anonymous same here, actually. i didn’t even realize it was in writing, but i KNOW when i left that housing was guaranteed—otherwise i wouldn’t have left.
hmm….
@Anonymous *guaranteed for when i came back from temporary leave, i mean
@Residential Life & Housing We would like to know where you are living abroad, so we can house two additional students with you. Please inform us of the program you are attending and your living arrangements so we may notify incoming transfers that they will be spending their semester abroad with you.
Thank you for your cooperation and we apologize for any inconvenience.
@Anonymous ^THIS. should be boxed.
@proves BC is treated poorly by CU Columbia owns the neighborhood. If PrezBo wanted to fix this, I suspect that he could. But he doesn’t, and nobody has called on him to, and nobody will. Because: Obamanard isn’t what puts Barnard down; it is this shit. It is the silence of everybody who should be outraged at the very real and tangible animosity between the schools, and the apparent mistreatment of one by the other.
@BC'14 What? Barnard royally fucked up. Unlike however many other issues in the CU community, this has nothing to do with PresBo.
Glad I’m abroad this fall as I wouldn’t be looking forward to the atmosphere on campus this September.
@Anonymous I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you actually go to Barnard, and just address your point:
Yes, Barnard College fucked up—and it will be Barnard students who pay. Barnard students, who are students of Columbia University, of which Lee C Bollinger is president.
No, it’s not his fault, or his responsibility. But if he cared, he could fix it. But he won’t, since he doesn’t have to.
If you go to Barnard, you have victimized yourself.
@bc 14 “If you go to Barnard, you have victimized yourself.”
What if we believe that it would be nice for PrezBo to help out but he doesn’t have to, since we have a separate president, endowment, and administration? What a load of tosh.
@The same BC'14 “benefit of the doubt”? Jesus, it’s possible to go to a school and not be on board with everything it does!
@Anonymous “atmosphere on campus”
AKA bwog comments that nobody ever talks about in real life except to shit on them.
and yet they are written by somefolk…
@Alum Yes, CU owns a lot of apartments. But it also has a lot of demand for them. There is a very long waitlist. They aren’t just sitting around empty.
Putting dozens of Barnard students in those apartments would mean bumping Columbia grad students, faculty, postdocs, librarians, research scholars, etc. who are at the top of the list. There’s no good reason CU should exacerbate its own housing shortage in order to reduce Barnard’s.
@Anonymous As someone who transferred into Barnard a few years ago, I am absolutely appalled. If I had received an e-mail like this this late in the summer, I wouldn’t have been able to attend Barnard. I would have already un-enrolled from my freshman-year university and cancelled my housing there. It’s 6 hours round trip to my home (in the tri-state area, but definitely not close), and I would have either had to rush to find cheap NYC housing, or not attend college for the fall semester. I cannot believe Barnard is asking this of their students- I sense that housing won’t be a problem in the spring when everyone transferring in during the Fall of 2012 transfers out.
@Anonymous Why do they take so many students when they don’t have the space or the dorms?
@Anon As a columbia student I am willing to allow homeless barnard ladies to stay in my double for the low price of 1 blowjob a night. Hurry up spots are filling quickly
@Anonymous just when I thought we were getting the douchebag epidemic under control…
@Anonymous Should’ve known you can’t expect to have everything Columbia has right? I’ll be enjoying my spacious 130 sq ft single suckas.
@Anonymous i had to laugh at that one. good try!
@Anonymous Barnard gives out housing grants to cover the cost of housing and meals. If you decide you don’t want to live on campus, that grant does not transfer over to cover tuition costs or is expendable for off-campus housing. You just lose 11g’s.
@Anonymous Oh okay… only 11,000.
@Anonymous You would obviously lose any financial aid for haousing and living expenses. There are those nice new glass skyscrapers around 100th street.
@Wow This is horrible.
I bet they are all considering returning to wherever they’re transferring from.
An Elliot forced double seemed bad enough as it is. Amazing really that ResLife was able to top it- and with half a week’s notice!
Nothing like some of that New York City welcoming hospitality for transfers….
@Tomorrow's Email From: “Residential Life & Housing”
Date: August 11, 2012 12:23:22 PM CDT
To: [redacted]@barnard.edu
Cc: [redacted@gmail.com
Subject: Housing update
Dear [redacted]:
Thank you for applying for on-campus housing and for your patience as the College waits to see if any additional space opens up for the Fall.
At this point, we are suggesting you go to Smith. Seriously. It’s pretty warm this time of year. And that fresh air will be good for you. Sure there isn’t a man within a 50 mile radius who isn’t your 49-year-old married professor who keeps staring at your legs, but he’ll give you an A for the semester. Why don’t you try it out? It’ll be fun.
If you have already made other arrangements to go to a different college this Fall and/or no longer wish to come to Barnard, we would appreciate you replying to this email to let us know.
Thank you,
Barnard Residential Life & Housing
@Anonymous “… or don’t tell us, and we’ll just charge you $1000, ’cause that’s how we do.”
@Historian from the future And slowly Columbia will start to absorb Barnard until they become one institution……..
@Anonymous Columbia tried in the 80s, but those bears like their independence.
@Anonymous But they still like our diplomas.
@independent bear Speak for yourself. I never understood the point of it.
@best of both worlds damn right we do