<p>I'm from India. And we do not have AP (Advanced Placement) classes or any such credit courses here. I came across a few sites like Alison, which offer certificates for certain online courses. Would Harvard and MIT accept these courses? Would they add weight to my application? Or are they useless?</p>
<p>On-line courses that offer “certificates of completion” do not give Admissions an idea of whether you were an A student or a D student. As such, they are not given the same weight as graded AP courses or graded on-line courses. While they may be useful for an applicant’s own knowledge, they are rather useless for purposes of Admissions. The only upside to them I would think would be to demonstrate your self-directed love of learning.</p>
<p>FWIW: Once admitted, Harvard does not accept transfer credits form other universities unless those courses have been pre-approved in advance. So, even if you took a course at Stanford for the summer prior to attending Harvard, those credits would not transfer to Harvard. Likewise, on-line course credits do not transfer over to Harvard college. Harvard will accept transfer credits from Harvard Extension School, but I beleive those courses have to graded course credits: <a href=“http://www.extension.harvard.edu”>http://www.extension.harvard.edu</a></p>