Politics
The Great Barnard College Diploma Mix-Up
Many graduates received someone else’s diploma in the mail. The college blamed a clerical error.
Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we’ll look at why some Barnard College diplomas were recently mailed to the wrong graduates. We’ll also look at why more migrants are sleeping on city streets, in parks and on the subway.
Credit…Sarah Blesener for The New York Times
After four years of grinding out papers, cramming for exams and paying more than $250,000 in tuition, graduates of a prestigious college expect something to show for it: diplomas with their names on it.
But the diplomas that many 2024 graduates of Barnard College received carried someone else’s name.
Students who received the wrong diplomas said that the envelope from Barnard carried a graduate’s name above a different graduate’s address. The diploma inside — written in Latin and embossed with Barnard’s official seal — carried the same name as the one on the envelope. The Postal Service went by the addresses.
That all only compounded the confusion. Barnard had used the addresses of the graduates’ parents. In the weeks since Barnard’s commencement, on May 15 at Radio City Music Hall, many parents had been on the lookout for an envelope large enough to hold a diploma.
“It’s a very first-world problem to get the wrong diploma,” said Sydney Gerlach, who was in New York when her mother in Colorado opened the envelope. “The fact that I was in a position where I could get a diploma from a really prestigious four-year college, I’m very privileged. But I was still annoyed because it was not the easiest four years. I started college during Covid, and it was hard to feel celebratory at graduation because of everything happening on campus.”
