<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>I'm a freshman at an undergrad university, and I'm really passionate about attending Harvard Grad school. I have a 3.9 GPA and am doing an internship with a prestigious professor at my university while taking advantage of every opportunity that I'm given.</p>
<p>I'm just wondering if taking classes at Harvard Extension will influence my admittance to one of their graduate programs. I want to show that I'm passionate about Harvard and I thought that this would perhaps be one of the means I utilize to demonstrate it. </p>
<p>Thank you for your time.</p>
<p>Congratulations on getting a 3.9 during your first semester of college- grades will be important if you aspire to attend graduate school one day, keep it up. I also want to compliment you on having started a research job, this will be vital for your career.</p>
<p>It may seem counterintuitive to you, as you have so recently been through undergraduate admissions, but prestige in graduate school doesn’t correlate to brand names. Harvard may have a good department in whatever field you are in, but it doesn’t need to be so. I don’t completely understand your passion to attend graduate school at Harvard; is it that you love Cambridge? want to work with a particular faculty member? hope to brag at high school reunions?</p>
<p>I can’t really answer your questions about the Harvard distance learning programs except to say that these aren’t the kind of things that admission committees care about when evaluating whether or not to take a graduate student. Instead, they look for somebody who did well in research as an undergraduate and holds the potential for being an excellent independent scientist one day. </p>
<p>If you think you would enjoy taking online classes through the distance learning program, go for it. It may even fulfill your desire to brag to your former high school colleagues, but it won’t do much for you in the way of being accepted to a certain graduate school.</p>
<p>Thank you for your response! </p>
<p>To be honest, I’ve had a passion for Harvard since I was younger, and I knew that going there for undergrad wouldn’t be as possible plus I didn’t want to go into tons of debt for an undergrad degree 
A graduate degree is integral to me, and although I haven’t quite settled on what graduate program I want to attend (as I’m a history major so there’s a few degrees I could pursue), I’m absolutely positive that Harvard is the school that I aspire to attend due to the challenging workload, professors, and prestige. </p>
<p>I’ll probably end up taking classes there, as I want to gain some insight about what classes are actually like. </p>
<p>I’m currently enrolled in the honors program at my college, while serving a role on both the honors council and student government. I’ve made connections with professors who have graduated from Yale and other Ivies who are fairly well known in the academic realm. (along with a prof who has published several books through the Harvard Press and is familiar with their faculty) </p>
<p>I understand that ivy school admissions are always uncertain, but I’m willing to do whatever I can and o just want to make sure I’m on track.</p>
<p>I think you may have missed Belevitt’s point: Harvard won’t necessarily be a top program in your chosen field. Yale and Princeton might not be, either. Maybe the absolute best program will be at University of Michigan or Univ. of Wisconsin or Carnegie Mellon or Emory. Until you know what you want to research/study as a graduate student, you won’t know. My daughter turned down an Ivy League grad program because it wasn’t as good for what she wanted to study as the public university she now attends. </p>
<p>Next, taking classes through Harvard Extension will not help your chances. And, unlike in undergraduate admissions, extracurricular activities, unless you plan to go to law or medical school, will have no bearing. </p>
<p>Get the best grades you can. Work with professors. Write an honors thesis. If you think you might want to study history or any of the humanities, study both French and German – and if you are already proficient in one of these, add a third language. These are the things that will make you competitive at the top programs in your field, whether at Harvard or elsewhere.</p>
<p>How about you just do your best in college first and then figure out grad school? A lot will change in your life by your senior year when you’re looking at grad schools.</p>
<p>Thank you both for your responses. Actually, I quite understand that ivies don’t always offer the most reputable programs, but the programs that I am interested in, most predominantly law, is one that Harvard seems a good match for.</p>
<p>If you are interested in the law program, you are posting in the wrong forum. The Graduate School forums really focus on research-based graduate degrees, not professional programs. And since the research-based law degrees require the JD first, that is really your first step. I am not sure many people on this forum can really tell you what it takes to get into law school.</p>
<p>You really can’t get set on Harvard this early on, especially for something like history. You see, even if Harvard has a highly-ranked history program overall (which it does), it’s not strong in every discipline WITHIN history. For example, there is not a single professor at Harvard currently accepting graduate students who studies anything even remotely related to my field of interest. Therefore, I will not be applying to Harvard for graduate school in history, despite the fact that I am a history major and they have a top-ranked program. A friend who was applying for history grad school this year cut Yale off his list because while they have what is probably the best “overall” history program in the country, they weren’t strong in his particular geographic area/time period. Grad school is about the professor(s) you will work with, and much less about the overall program. And even if there is a professor you want to work with there now, it’s entirely possible that when you’re ready to apply in 3 years, they will have moved elsewhere. </p>
<p>Even for law, where overall program strength matters much more, different law schools have different strengths. For example, if you decide you want to pursue academic law (ie, becoming law prof) you might choose Yale or Stanford over Harvard. If you’re really into public interest law, NYU might be your best bet. If you’d prefer international law, Columbia is probably strongest. Harvard law is obviously excellent, but the top handful of law schools are all fantastic, and some of them are stronger than Harvard in particular areas.</p>
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And because this is true, if you have no idea what field you want to earn a graduate degree in, or what subfield of that field you want to study, there is no way you can set your sights on one particular school. </p>
<p>Going to graduate school at Harvard is entirely different from going to undergrad at Harvard. You will not go to the football games. You will not live in the houses and eat dinner in the dining halls. You will not wear a sweatshirt with a big “H” on it. Grad school is like a job where you are paid to learn and discover things, and in the end they will give you a piece of paper that happens to have a school’s name on it. But you aren’t really immersed in the spirit of that school in the way the undergrads are.</p>
<p>I believe people are giving you very insightful advice although it seems as though you have already made up your mind. I would caution you to just consider the points that they are making. If you understand your motives for why you want to go to Harvard, then it can only help you. For example, you seem very bright, ambitious, and planning of the future. Life does not end at graduate school, wherever you end up. From your drive and motivation, I’m guessing that you will want to be at the top of your field after you graduate, right? What people are implicitly telling you is that Harvard does not automatically = career success. You are being cautioned to critically evaluate whether Harvard actually has the best specific program tailored to your specific interests. They may be the best in some areas, but this does not mean that they are the best in your area. I would think very carefully about this because you may find that your career will be better influenced by other programs with more prestige in your field (or Harvard’s, should that be the case).</p>