Founded in 1889, Barnard was the only college in New York City, and one of the few in the nation, where women could receive the same rigorous and challenging education available to men. The College was named after Frederick A.P. Barnard, then the tenth president of Columbia College, who argued unsuccessfully for the admission of women to Columbia University. One of the original Seven Sisters, Barnard was, from the beginning, a place that took women seriously and challenged them intellectually. Now, with a more than 110-year tradition as an independent college for women affiliated with Columbia University, Barnard continues to challenge the way its students think about themselves, their world, and their roles in changing it.

Barnard students reap all the benefits of a small, independent liberal arts college - and they are also in the curricular and extracurricular mainstream of Columbia University. Barnard maintains its own faculty, curriculum, administration, and operating budget; its own admissions standards; its own campus. Barnard's general education requirements help students to analyze information, think independently, and express themselves effectively. They include an interdisciplinary First-Year Seminar, First-Year English, and courses fulfilling the nine ways of knowing: Reason and Value, Social Analysis, Historical Studies, Cultures in Comparison, Laboratory Science, Quantitative and Deductive Reasoning, Language, Literature, and Visual and Performing Arts.

Students choose a single or interdisciplinary major, or they create their own. The junior and senior years are a time to work especially closely with professors who are at the leading edge of their disciplines; they serve as advisors, mentors, and research partners. Many students do independent research or creative work for their senior thesis. Through these experiences and with this support, Barnard women gain the creative and analytic skills, the discipline, and the confidence to take on any challenge. A particularly well-prepared group, designated as Centennial Scholars, receives stipends to conduct intensive, often interdisciplinary, projects starting in their first year.