Harvard Extension School

Colleges & Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>I was looking into NYU's online program, and by accident, found a distance program done through Harvard. According to the program's website, I can graduate with a Masters from Harvard through the distance program. The website says there is no difference on my transcripts showing whether I attended the on-campus or off-campus program. It also says I would live be required to live on campus for 2 semesters, and take at least 4 courses in the classroom. Meaning I'd pretty much get the Harvard experience.</p>

<p>Is the Harvard Extension program as good as it sounds? The admissions don't appear competitive and the cost of tuition is cheaper than the on-campus degree completion. Would it be worthwhile to apply for acceptance into the program? </p>

<p>Here's a link to the program: Harvard</a> University Extension School</p>

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<p>Harvard Extension is one of the colleges at Harvard University and is overseen by the Faculty of Arts and Science. I am beginning the ALM-Government program this Fall, my roommate is currently in the ALM program. You are correct in that you do have to complete a residency requirement to earn the degree, but you will not live on campus (the University does not provide housing options for Extension School students). Also, your classes will all be in the evening as Harvard Extension was designed to cater to working professionals. Courses all begin at either 5:30 or 7:30 in the evening. You can take classes through the Graduate School of Arts and Science IF you receive special student status (requires maintaining a 3.5 GPA after four classes, applying, and being approved by both the extension school and the department you want take courses in inside the GSAS).
You are correct in that admissions aren’t competitive in the traditional sense. Anyone who has the money can take courses at HES, BUT actually being admitted into the degree program requires completing three courses including a proseminar with a grade of B or better. If you can’t do that you won’t be admitted as a degree candidate. Beyond that, the thesis that is required to graduate ends up derailing a lot of extension student’s hopes of becoming a Harvard Alum.
I hope this info is helpful.</p>

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<p>Posts: 1</p>

<p>Harvard Extension School
Hey! I have the chance to do my undergrad at either Arizona State University or Harvard Extension School. I am 26, money is not a huge issue and I am looking for the best education I can get. Night or day does not matter to me. I simply want an amazing education I can keep with me. I have already taken classes at HES and loved it. That being said, I would like to go to law school. So if given the chance which school would be better to get my undergrad in and which one, grades and LSAT score permitting, would give me the best chance to get into a top tier law school?</p>

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<p>Kinglin, the term “in residence” does not mean living on campus. “In residence” basically means taking classes continuously ONLY at that school. This term comes up a lot with undergraduate education, where schools generally like graduates to be “in residence” for the final two years, during which time, once committed to a program, they would no longer get credit/transfer credit from classes taken elsewhere.</p>

<p>If the website says there is no difference between the online and on-campus program, it is referring to the online and on-campus Extension School program, not the regular Harvard program. By “on-campus” they are referring to Extension School classes taken in actual classrooms. This is entirely separate from the selective Harvard undergrad and grad courses (unless, as someone said, you win approval to take those classes after getting good grades in 4 classes; even then, you are a “special student” and not a regular Harvard student).</p>

<p>Please notice that the degrees are different at HES. The degree of “Master of Liberal Arts” is not the same degree that students at Harvard University’s other graduate programs receive. At the undergraduate level, the BA in Liberal Studies in not the same as, say, a BA in English. HES is a continuing education school, not a traditional college program.</p>

<p>HES has a great reputation and I have read that professors really love teaching the mixed ages, mixed backgrounds, mixed abilities in the evening and weekend classes there. Many people are working and/or raising families. The classes are good, the teaching is good, and it is a great way to learn. Some students who already have degrees take the classes for enrichment.</p>

<p>But it is not the same as going to Harvard. </p>

<p>Some people seem to want to go to HES so they can have the Harvard name on their resume. I think it would be dishonest to indicate that you went to Harvard. The resume should indicate HES. If the degree indicates Harvard (and I have no idea if it does), and you list it that way, the title of your degree will indicate to knowledgeable people that you went to HES, but may impress some.</p>

<p>The best reason to choose HS would be the quality of the courses and diversity of students, the cost (it is cheaper than UMass Boston’s continuing education, and way, way cheaper than BU’s Metropolitan College), and the convenience of night/weekend/online courses for those who have other commitments in their lives.</p>

<p>People do get into good schools after HES. It can take a lot of perseverance to work and get a degree at the same time, and that effort can certainly be impressive to admissions folks.</p>

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<p>The web site is pretty much a scam built on the knowledge that many potential customers will confuse Harvard Extension School with Harvard College (the undergrad degree) and the competitive-admission graduate programs. Clicking on the link, I made it as far as the following statement: </p>

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<p>They do bring (that is, sell) some form of “academics” to the public, but it has only a passing relation to what anyone else would call “Harvard academics”, such as regular Harvard professors (not adjuncts and high school teachers and non-PhD’s) teaching more than a tiny fraction of the courses, or the evening and online courses being equivalent to the daytime versions.</p>

<p>Harvard Extension school is fine on its own merits as a collection of academic programs. It is the Extension School’s advertising that has long been dishonest, and the application requirements for some HES programs amount to a good old-fashioned illegal scam that is ripe for a takedown by the state Attorney General.</p>

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<p>Siserune,
I certainly hope it never comes to that. To have the State Attorney General crack down on a practice that HES has enriched it’s students over the years could be very damaging. </p>

<p>I have not seen how HES could misled people into believing that HES is like going to Harvard College. Even I know that it’s not the case because I feel that the majority of the people who attend HES are non-degree candidates who are there to take classes. Very few even bother to apply to the undergraduate of graduate degree programs because they don’t feel the need to. Only a small number of people ever apply to either the ALB or ALM. However, it seems that more folks are interested in the ALM program. Those who complete either the ALB or ALM degree program, from what I understand, are very focused people who are passionate about their studies and know how to maximize the opportunities that are given to them. In addition, the one who successfully complete the program where transfers from other colleges or universities with very strong GPA’s.</p>

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<p>Note that by “illegal scam” I am referring to the requirements for AA and ALB admission,
as discussed in an earlier thread:</p>

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<p>Well, the problem is rather with practices that have financially enriched HES at the expense of some of its students. See posts #8 and #10 of this thread:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/613594-rejected-harvard-extension-school.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/613594-rejected-harvard-extension-school.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Questions the Attorney General might ask include: why can the academic entry
requirements for AA and ALB degrees only be satisfied by a process that includes paying thousands of dollars to HES? Why is no other evidence of academic fitness allowed as a substitute?</p>

<p>As for misleading advertising, the single most misleading thing is HES’ complete avoidance of the biggest, simplest question triggered by a reading of their marketing material. Namely, **if Harvard is so expensive, with tuition (just the classes, not room, board, and the rest) now running at well over four thousand dollars per course, isn’t it “too good to be true” to expect the same thing at one thousand dollars per course through the Extension School? What’s the catch? **</p>

<p>If you want more specific examples from the HES web site, front and center on their page about undergraduate degrees we find the following:</p>

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<p>Adjunct’s, non-PhDs, high-school teachers and people with non-academic daytime jobs are not examples of “distinguished faculty members”, but there are probably more of them teaching at HES than distinguished Harvard faculty.</p>

<p>Harvard College doesn’t make such boasts about where its graduates end up. The Extension School considers it acceptable to explicitly dangle visions of Oxford and Cambridge graduate studies in front of candidates for an associates’ degree.</p>

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<p>Reading Sisrune’s posts has value. The decision about attending any academic institution should be made from an informed position. This is not the first thread I have reading that discusses the potentially deceptive nature of the Extension School. I primarily read posts by individuals who believe that they are now going to be able to claim “Harvard graduate” on their resume. I am speculating that HES would not have the same draw if it was simply called the “Extension School”.</p>

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<p>I was reading a recent trend on the extensionstudent.com website regarding the name change of Harvard Extension School to the College of Continuing and Professional Studies. In my opinion, I feel that it’s better to leave the HES name as it stands. I feel that the most important thing for each student to do is concentrate on the academic opportunities that HES provides. If the person doesn’t like the name HES, why bother to attend the school to begin with? The brand name recognition means nothing without substance, which are the challenging opportunities that HES provides. It’s quite unlikely that the HES will ever be renamed Harvard University: School of Continuing and Professional Studies. The only other school that succeed with its name change was UPenn, who renamed the College of General Studies to The College of Liberal and Professional Studies.</p>

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<p>^ I agree with you that they should not rename the Extension. The name is rooted in history and fully describes its function, while the new proposals being made offer neither of these. On the other hand, I do fully support the planned changes to the degree nomenclature (although I’ve already graduated :frowning: ).</p>

<p>@smoda61: I’ll admit that getting a HU degree has its attractions, but if there was no HUES and only ES, I would have still taken it up if the quality of the faculty and courses were the same. For me these are the deciding factors.</p>

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<p>@GolferGreen: Did you manage to get the opportunity to enroll in a few classes at HES?</p>

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<p>Is anyone else currently attending HES? Tell us your experience with the classes and the teachers.</p>

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<p>I’ve now done three classes at HES-- well, five if you count two just after college. Professors were very good, and helpful as far as the format permitted.<br>
One was a course with a new star of the history department. Her lectures were videotaped and so we watched online. Her regular TAs ran sections. Those were on the Web, so had a wide range of geography represented. There was someone from the US Army somewhere in the mideast, a lot of people from all over the US, and I even phoned in once from Singapore at breakfast time. I live in Boston, so when I had a few questions about a paper coming due, I went to the prof’s office. So far, more or less what a Harvard undergrad would have had. The main difference was in the sections-- which weren’t full of Harvard undergrads. Pretty much everybody can take these classes, and while the section-attenders tend to be self-selecting, it’s not a uniformly high-voltage crowd. Still, I got what I came for, and enjoyed what I experienced. The papers were more or less what the College students would have done, although the midterm and final were formatted a little differently so you could take them online.
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Another course was with a prof who chairs his department at another university in Boston. IIRC, his bachelor’s was from HES, and then he went on to a PhD at the Arts & Sciences division. It was based on lectures, which you could do live or over the web. He had good TAs correcting the papers. I don’t think there were sections held. The syllabus was made to suit a lot of students, from casual lookers-on, to undergrads piling up credits and getting their skills in order, to others looking to go to grad school. You could script a lot of what your workload would be like. He was very responsive to e-mails, and would also have been happy to talk to you after the lecture or in his office if you were in Boston. I ended up doing some very interesting independent research, and am now trying to figure out how to turn part of that into a master’s thesis. The prof is helping me with that.
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The third course was in the January term. Taught by a full-time Harvard ES prof (there actually are such things), it met for 4 evenings for each of 3 weeks. There was some required reading to do beforehand. If you did all the suggested reading for each topic, you’d be working at it for a year, so the discussions weren’t as in-depth as you might like. Still, it was interesting material, and the writing was just intense enough to make it a real time commitment.<br>
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Students in that class tended to be HES ALB candidates trying to get their residence partially burned up in a short time. So there were people from all over the US, and one girl living in Paris with her husband. I’m guessing that their SATs weren’t all at Harvard College levels, but they were generally bright and really motivated. They seemed to have fallen into the Extension School because of some kind of life circumstance. Military careers, financial problems earlier in life, etc. It was interesting to get to know them and hear them talk about their progress through the ALB. That also drove home the fact that there really is no campus community. You do share classes with people, but even if they come in person for that class, you may never see them again.</p>

<p>My first choice for the master’s program wouldn’t necessarily be at HES-- not because it is awful, but because you’d have to become a special student at Harvard to get the best selection of courses, and because you wouldn’t really have a coherent program or group of classmates beyond what you could dig out for yourself. On the other hand, if I did do the ALM, I’d certainly get a lot out of it, and for some, it’s the best option available.</p>

<p>And no, it’s not the same as grad school at Harvard. Around Boston, people will be impressed that you’ve done the work and if you learn good material, it’s going to be useful. Your thesis proposal (never mind the actual thesis) has to be about 25 pages and good enough to grab the attention of the Harvard faculty member that you want to supervise you. But it’s still known locally as The Extension School. Of course, they also refer to Harvard Law as The Law School. :-)</p>