Barnard College enters the narrative as Meredith’s chosen destination and as a sign that the school years shared with Niru are ending. Its significance lies less in campus description than in the way the name suddenly gives institutional form to an approaching separation: Meredith will move toward a selective college in New York while Niru is reconsidering the future expected of him.

Meredith’s College Destination

Meredith announces that she is going to Barnard College during the final track meet of the school year. The news comes while she and Niru repair their friendship after a period of silence. She has asked Rowan to prom but told him she was going with Niru, using the proposed date as an affectionate demand that their intimacy be restored. Her Barnard announcement therefore arrives inside a scene of reconciliation, linking the college to both her personal independence and the continuation of her bond with Niru.

A Marker of Diverging Futures

The college represents a future that appears settled for Meredith, whereas Niru is increasingly resistant to the path laid out for him. At the meet, he has not told Coach Erickson that he will not run at Harvard, despite his athletic progress and the expectation that he will continue along an elite educational and sporting track. Meredith’s confident announcement that she will attend Barnard sharpens the contrast between her declared next step and Niru’s uncertainty about whether inherited plans still belong to him.

Friendship, Ritual, and Departure

Meredith invites Niru to celebrate her admission at Riverrun, the senior tradition involving alcohol and the Potomac River that marks the end of the track season. The invitation turns Barnard from an abstract college destination into part of a shared farewell ritual. Niru would rather see Damien, but he agrees to attend with Meredith after she asks whether they are still friends and whether they are “cool.” Barnard thus becomes attached to the last phase of their school friendship: it is the news Meredith wants celebrated before the friends leave for different lives.

Class and Institutional Access

The wider school setting treats college admission as a near-religious day of judgment. Students who entered college early already know their futures, while others wait anxiously for acceptance or rejection letters; rumors even circulate about computer errors and lawsuits from parents claiming psychological harm. In that atmosphere, Barnard signifies not only Meredith’s personal achievement but also access to an elite educational system that sorts students through prestige and certainty. The narrative places that access beside Niru’s family resources: his father owns a luxurious Range Rover and has paid for private schooling, yet Niru experiences those advantages as part of a life whose expectations he may refuse.

Narrative Significance

Barnard College functions as a precise geographical and emotional point on the story’s map of departure. Meredith’s admission confirms that she is moving forward through an established route, while Niru’s response reveals a widening gap between external success and inner consent. The college is named at the moment their friendship is renewed, so the future it represents is not simply a separation from Niru. It is also a promise that the friendship can survive, at least briefly, through deliberate choice: Meredith asks him to accompany her into the ritual that closes their shared school life before Barnard opens her next one.