18 CommentsWelcome to Barnard, new dancing bears!
On Wednesday, March 29, Barnard released its regular admissions decisions for the Class of 2027 at 7 pm.
Barnard received 11,803 applications this year, slightly lower than the record-breaking 12,009 that they received for the Class of 2026. Despite this, Barnard accepted 6.5% of applicants this year, making this its most selective class to date. This continues the trend of Barnard’s admissions becoming increasingly selective, with its acceptance rate dropping to below 10% for the first time last year for the Class of 2026.
This year, 58% of newly admitted students identify as people of color. Additionally, these new students represent 47 states and territories, as well as 40 countries. Approximately 14% of the new admits are international students, 21% are first-generation students, and 34 admitted students are QuestBridge scholars.
In terms of academics, 94% of admitted students were in the top 10% of their class, and 54% of admitted students applied under Barnard’s test-optional policy. The top ten areas of academic interest for accepted students are: Political Science, English, Biology, Economics, Psychology, Computer Science, Environmental Science, Human Rights, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Congratulations Class of 2027! We are so excited to meet you!
This article has been updated to reflect new information from Barnard.
Barnard Hall via Bwarchives
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18 Comments
@Anonymous “Barnard overenrolled the classes of 2026 and 2025.” Well, why do you think Barnard overenrolled during these two years? Because it took in so many test-optional applicants (54% this year!). A larger proportion of these students are weaker and couldn’t get into the more elite schools , thus had to enroll at Barnard. This is one problem with ranking. A college can game the system to show more stellar acceptance and yield rates while in actuality the quality of its admitted students goes down.
@Anonymous 1. Columbia moved to a completely test optional policy (don’t see you complaining about that so… hypocritical much?)
2. Columbia literally was called out for gaming the system for so many years ;) don’t see the same scrutiny with Barnard – oh wait its cuz Barnard didn’t lie or game the system the way Columbia blatantly did
3. Assuming you’re in CC or SEAS, I think you’re one of the “ones bringing the quality of admitted students down” for not thinking before you posted of how ironically hypocritical your points are not to mention how conflated and just straight out wrong they are
@Anonymous Some of you may not be aware that Bernard extended its regular admissions deadline by two weeks hours before the deadline. Google it. It did this clearly because it realized it would have a much lower number of applications this year, which would hurt its acceptance rate. It did this despite knowing it had many more applicants than they can admit for the tiny amount of slots still had after subtracting the many slots that were already given to the early-decision applicants (again, gaming the yield rate). I have no doubt Barnard takes good care of the students it admitted. But in its admission process, it gamed the system and exploited the vulnerability of its applicants.
@Anonymous and…? so did Columbia College – BTW CC did so for their transfer deadline too…on top of regular admissions for first year stay mad
@Anonymous Also, didn’t they only extend for those in China due to some crisis occurring there?
@Anonymous Incorrect. Columbia College did not extend any of its deadlines (while many other Ivies like Penn did), and in fact has the earliest deadline.
@Anonymous Do the 11,803 and 6.5% numbers include both early and regular decision applications? If not, what is the breakdown between the two?
@Anonymous You are correct, and I agree with you. However, every school is doing this, not just Barnard. Harvard, Stanford, Princeton are even worse because they now accept 60-65% of their students early which really increases yield, and pushes down admit rates. They also refuse to increase their class sizes to stay elite. By comparison, Columbia only admits about 30% of its student early and takes many more regular. Not having standardized tests really decreases the quality of students admitted to these schools. MIT found that people could not keep up with their math and need remedial courses, and immediately reinstated the use of standardized tests. School swill find out how far behind these students are.
@Anonymous Barnard overenrolled the classes of 2026 and 2025. The reason the class of 2027 is smaller is because there is literally no space for them on campus. Classes are too full, housing is too full, and it’s not just Barnard. So many colleges are having this problem, some have had to put students up in hotel rooms. If anything, they ARE paying attention to student quality, and not making these students suffer because they couldn’t get the numbers right. Barnard students are fucking incredible. Calm down.
@Cameron Iizuka Don’t you mean that the Regular Decision Acceptance Rate was 6.5% and the ED Rate was 25.49% for a total combined acceptance rate of 9.19%?
@Anonymous No. The combined rate was 6.5%.
@Thom Iizuka Please clarify the numbers. A 6.5% acceptance rate based on 11803 applications would be 767 admits correct? If Barnard accepted 426 out of 1671 during the Early Decision cycle, that means that there would only be 341 RD students out of 10132 applications for RD (11803-1671) for an RD rate of 3.4%. According to last year’s profile, 710 students matriculated so accepting only a total of 767 seems very low since last year 961 students were admitted in total. Now if 6.5% of RD were admitted that would be 659 students (6.5*10132) for a total of 1085. 1085/11803 would be a total admit rate of 9.2% which still is a low admit rate. So can you clarify the numbers and correct your press release/article if that is in fact the case? Thank you.
@Anonymous Why are both you and your supposed son/daughter Cameron lizuka so pressed (i think its because cameron attends CC and youre mad about barnard catching up to columbia’s acceptance rate
@Anonymous Thomas do you not have a life to do better things with considering you’re probably like 40+ years old. Guess that “self-run business” of yours must not be doing so well for you to try and pick on college aged students / student body….
@Anonymous you and your daughter need to get a life
@John Smith It is clear that Barnard is playing the number game. I don’t think it really cares about the quality of the students it admitted. It is anything for ranking. Why did Barnard accept 8% last year when it has more applications, but 6.5% this year when it has fewer applications? Simple: because a whopping 54% of its admitted students did not have scores that are good enough to submit (pandemic is long over; anyone can take a standard test and almost all students did). The beauty of these students to Barnard is that admitting these students has no impact on its SAT/ACT averages. In fact, they will actually increase its averages from the students who chose to submit their scores (because they are high enough) and at the same time do not have the otherwise lower-score students to drag down the averages. Further, these students are also more likely to give Barnard a higher yield rate, as they are more likely to be weaker and less likely to be admitted into more elite schools. Barnard clearly expected a higher yield rate out of these students, thus made a decision to lower its acceptance rate to avoid having too many students showing up at its doorsteps. By playing this game, Barnard improves its acceptance rate, its yield rate, and its test score averages. The only problem is that it was done at the expense of the overall quality of its incoming batch of students.
But I can also understand why Barnard prioritizes its ranking over student quality. It is ranked 18 among the liberal arts colleges. Not exactly where it wants to be.
@Anonymous its clear youre just mad so stay mad
@Anonymous Did it sting when Columbia rejected you?