Barnard College is a private women’s college located in New York City.  It has about 2,600 undergrads. It’s affiliated with Columbia across the street in Morningside Heights. With an acceptance rate of about 11%, it’s highly competitive. Here are some tips for standing out against the competition when writing the Barnard supplements, of which there are three this year.

What factors encouraged your decision to apply to Barnard College, and why do you think the college would be a good match for you? (300 words)

This is a straightforward one, but there are some things you need to know before putting pen to paper. First, every school is looking for experts in various academic niches to join their ranks. So, your objective in applying to college (and in the years leading up) should be to position yourself as an expert in a very specific subject. “Science” isn’t specific enough. Think mechanical engineering. Your extracurriculars should be aligned with this niche. The first thing you’ll want to do for this supplement is to tell your origin story. In other words, tell a story about how you got interested in this subject. This should not be a big deal spiritual awakening story. It’s probably (and better to be) something simple like…you were on a road trip you’re your family and the radiator blew and you became obsessed with watching the mechanic fix it.

Next, you need to declare a major in your essay. Don’t worry, this is NOT an official declaration. You can totally change it once you get to Barnard and even for a few years down the line. But this is the point at which you need to connect your interests and experience to what they have Barnard has to offer to make it clear that you’re a great fit. So, do some deep research on the majors and courses offered. Talk about upper-level cases you’d like to take and the professors who teach them. Get specific. Next, talk about the clubs and extracurriculars offered that are relevant and why you want to participate in them. Before wrapping up, you should talk about some more specifics about what’s drawing you to Barnard, including the location.

At Barnard, academic inquiry starts with bold questions. What are some of the bold questions you have pondered that get you excited and why do they interest you? Tell us how you would explore these questions at Barnard. (300 words)

This one is actually quite difficult and we want you to know that if this question gives you anxiety, that’s because having a life philosophy at 17 years old is basically unheard of. Articulating the life philosophy you may or may not have at this age is even harder. That said, here we are and you have to answer this question. The good news is so does everyone else.

A helpful way to reframe this question might be “do you have any decision-making frameworks you use to make decisions both big and small?” Start there. One of our writers rephrased the question as “what are you optimizing for?” If you can figure out your own unique answer to the two questions we posed, you can work backwards. Let’s say you’re optimizing for the least number of regrets at the end of your life. How did you get there? What experiences did you have that led you to your goal? That is the first part. Then, the second part is how does Barnard fit in? Hopefully you’ve already talked about the major you want to pursue and the extracurricular activities in which you’d like to enroll so you don’t need to repeat yourself. We recommend tying this into academics. You only have 300 words, so 200 should be your life philosophy and 100 should be the overlap between your life philosophy and Barnard.

(Optional) Pick one woman — a historical figure, fictitious character, or modern individual — to converse with for an hour and explain your choice. Why does this person intrigue you? What would you talk about? What questions would you ask them? 300 

First, take out a red pen and cross through the word “optional.” This one is not optional for our students. Strap in. This one is fun. First, you have to find a person. Everyone fits into the category of historical figure, fictitious character, or modern individual, so all you need to do is choose a woman. Any woman. (Ok, don’t choose Malala, Madonna, Hillary, or Hermione).

Choose a woman who embodies personality characteristics or professional aspirations you have or hope to have. This is the key part: you need to refrain from repeating information about yourself that you already included in prompts 1 and 2. This is an opportunity to share a part of your personality not present elsewhere in your application. So, if you already talked about how you want to study chemistry (prompt 1) to create medicines because you want to save people from preventable/curable disease (prompt 2) then you wouldn’t really be adding much by talking about Marie Curie here. Add dimensionality to the application. If you’re a science star, maybe you also like cooking or doing gymnastics. Perhaps you speak Spanish. Just remember to choose someone who is an offshoot of something about your personality that is not yet represented on your application.

Now, it’s really crucial that you tell a story here. Obviously, the prompt includes three questions here. You don’t need to answer them sequentially. We advise you to tell a story in which you bring your Guest of Honor into a hypothetical location and illustrate the scene as you envision it happening. If you do this correctly, you will be able to seamlessly explain why this person intrigues you. Add in dialogue to answer what you’d talk about.

In sum, the Barnard supplement is an opportunity to become more of a real person for the admissions counselor reading your application. You should always strive to position yourself as having a particular academic area expertise (a brand, if you will). On top of it, remain specific and tell stories in your essays.

Need some help writing the Barnard supplement? Reach out to us. We’re great at coaching students through the essay-writing process.