Bard College NY (College Prowler: Bard College Off the Record)

Introduction from the Author

Bard is an obscure college, a mere speck in the periphery of most college counselors’ advisory radar. Next time you’re talking to a friend or relative about where you’re planning on applying to school, mention Bard and note their reaction. Those even vaguely attuned to the College’s existence typically envision a sort of ultra-liberal, hippie bivouac hidden deep inside upstate New York’s darkest, wettest bowels. A place full of long hair, bare feet, oil paints, and tofu. Those who aren’t familiar with Bard simply bevel their heads and smile in that polite, awkward sort of way, common to people who have absolutely no idea of what you’re talking about. Either way, most non-Bardians are grossly uninformed when it comes to the little college’s real raison d’etre, its academic merit, and, perhaps most crucially, its student population.

Bard is, above all else, a haven for the unique, artistic, and intellectual. It’s a place for nonconformists, for rule-breakers, for the serious-minded. Talk to any Bard student long enough, and you’ll find that the majority eat, sleep, and breathe their area of study (and Bard serves well to foster any and all interests). Small classes, involved professors, and plenty of extracurricular functions make it the perfect place for self-motivated students. In fact, Bard’s intimate sense of community is one of the College’s most notable features—what makes it appealing not only to students emerging from small private schools (those people who are at home in a closely-knit academic consortium), but also to those accustomed to large impersonal institutions, students now looking to get away from the lecture hall and into the classroom.

As is the case with most colleges, Bard boasts its own special set of attributes, a certain feel, an aura distinctively ‘Bardian,’ that helps to set it apart from other colleges and universities. Bard’s aura encompasses its academics, social events, even the school’s location: to the average visitor, this may look more like a state park than a college (long, forested paths, a modest waterfall, northeast mountains, freshwater streams—these lend to Bard’s campus an insular feel, pastoral in places). And once on campus, you’ll find that the facilities’ eclectic architecture, the school’s long-running and often bizarre traditions, the peculiar little parties, and the one-of-a-kind academic programs are each marked, too, by the little college’s modest yet wholly unmistakable signature.

Of course, Bard’s real personality comes from its students: the kind who eschew sports and fraternities for concerts and plays, art shows and circuses, debates and dialogues; the sort who spent unprecedented amounts of their high school time in dark rooms and libraries; a mix of the smart, dedicated, and above all, open-minded. Of course, Bardians have fun, too, often in creative ways, and it’s that balance between work and play, attention and exploration, focus and release, that helps to make Bard the unique college it is.

Jared Killeen, Author
Bard College