The Harvard Extension School

[corpsole2]

I'm wondering how many of you have had experience or know about the Harvard Extension School?

For those who don't know, HES is Harvard's continuing education, degree granting school - on par with their world renowned business school and law school. It has been derisively called "the backdoor into Harvard" since it is open admission, largely online and costs one fourth of what you'd normally pay if you went the traditional route.

I have been communicating with a friend who "attends" HES, and he has told me that he is every bit a student as other undergrads who attend full time. On graduation, he'll get the Bachelor of Liberal Arts (ALB) degree instead of the traditional A.B. degree. Still, he says he would be a member of the huge alumni network.

I'm looking at HES for grad school work - possibly for an ALM in Government. A three credit course at the graduate level costs $2200, and you need twelve courses and a thesis to graduate. This would be far less money for a Master's in Government than if I went the full monty and attended the Kennedy School of Government.

Is the teaching and coursework the same quality as those who attend lectures in person? I have been told it is. You get the same instructors and same assignments, you have access to their extensive library network and to their mentors.

Although it is open admission, before you can enroll you are required to take three courses and get a cumulative B+ grade. This ostensibly shows them you know how to do the work. Once you enroll, financial aid can kick in.

Harvard has always been a dream for me, one that I had put in the "unreachable" category. But perhaps it isn't so much anymore. :-)

[soliloquy]

If you do a search, HES has been discussed here quite frequently. But, for the newbies, it can't hurt to let them know as well.

[bluebooger]

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Harvard Course Search

[rebel100]

My daughter has been at HES for a few semesters now. I would say it has been an incredible experience all in all. She has 11 classes left to finish her ALB.

Two things have come to light in regards to her studies, first she often finds that when she goes to write papers her instructors/professors routinely turn out to have written the definitive academic papers on the subjects. She really is learning from the top researchers and academics in her field. Secondly, that on campus requirement and the vibrant online communities have really served to anchor her to the school. I believe your friend should probably does feel very connected to the school...they designed it that way. Her chances to network have been stellar. This past January she went to Washington for a week for a class (counted for residency too) where she went all over DC with classmates by day and stayed in a dorm where every night some well known government official or media personality would give an intimate talk. She met a sitting Supreme Court Justice, and even got a few pictures with folks we've all heard of. But more than that she was with a bunch of other HES students and they work really hard at keeping in touch and networking.

Know that the first 3 courses really set the stage. HES isn't for everyone and while the barriers aren't unconquerable, they are significant. There are many reasons why only about 3% of the folks at HES are in a degree seeking program, among those reasons is a very high academic standard...not everyone is able to perform at this level.

I believe the Harvard brand will work very well on her resume. She gets call backs on every job or internship she applies for and that's been with companies large and small. If nothing else I think they want to meet a Harvard kid and make an assessment. She was offered several internship opportunities this summer which I feel can be strongly correlated to where she goes to school. Upon graduation she will have access to strong alumni support as well.

HES accepts up to 12 credits of CLEP (this is only 3 exams as they count them for 4 credits) for the ALB, and they are very transfer friendly. You can bring in up to 68 credits from CC's or just about any RA school.

She qualified for the PTK scholarship which meant her first three classes were free. On admission she was offered a generous merit/need based scholorship which, when coupled with a PELL Grant, has meant the ALB will essentially be free of charge as well (except for the cost of Hotels or Apartments...depends on how you work that out).

HES brought in a new Dean last year. the guy chosen is Huntington Lambert who is credited with much of the success of Colorado State's Global campus initiative. I think it reflects a desire to move boldly forward with the programs and courses...exciting things are happening.

Finally, know that they are experimenting with a Hybrid class model for residency requirement fulfillment, In some cases, and I believe the Government classes are a big part of this, you can take the bulk of the work online and fill the residency with intensive weekends...the gates unbarred indeed!

[Jonathan Whatley]

I'm wondering how many of you have had experience or know about the Harvard Extension School?

Hi! I'm a current student.

I have been communicating with a friend who "attends" HES, and he has told me that he is every bit a student as other undergrads who attend full time. On graduation, he'll get the Bachelor of Liberal Arts (ALB) degree instead of the traditional A.B. degree. Still, he says he would be a member of the huge alumni network.

If he's a matriculated student in the ALB degree program with an HUID card, it's fair to say that he's every bit as much a Harvard University student as a traditional, "Harvard College" undergrad is.

However, he's not a Harvard College undergrad. There is some objective difference in status there. Whether this objective difference is important or not or how important it gets more subjective. One of my friends here is a twentysomething ALB student who attends meetings of Harvard College-based clubs on subjects that interest her. Does she find Harvard College students treat her differently on the basis of her HES status? Sometimes. I believe there would be some explicit glass ceiling against her becoming a club officer, for instance. That said, there's a mandate from the administration to develop university-wide clubs, and there are recognized Extension School student clubs.

Some Harvard College students and alumni, or other people out there, know little or nothing about the Extension School. Some are even seriously misinformed on important points of fact. You can probably find students and graduates of Harvard College or other schools at Harvard who will, very wrongly, say that HES is "not part of Harvard." We can try to call out the error, when we see it and have the opportunity.

On alumni association membership and networking: My understanding is that Harvard College doesn't have an alumni association separate from the University-wide Harvard Alumni Association. HES degree graduates have full standing in the HAA.

However, if we're comparing an ALM from HES with a master's from the Kennedy School, the twist comes up that the Kennedy School has its own alumni association. HKS alumni can join either or both the HAA and HKS Alumni. I expect that that HES alumni can't join HKS Alumni. (Similarly, Harvard Business School has its own alumni association. It looks like the HBS association's Boston chapter pointedly lets in members from any other Harvard school except HES.)

It has been derisively called "the backdoor into Harvard"

How derisive is that really, though?

since it is open admission, largely online and costs one fourth of what you'd normally pay if you went the traditional route.

It's open enrollment in individual courses without hard prerequisites, but as you correctly state elsewhere, its degree programs are not open admissions.

It's only largely online if you take largely online courses, in a program that offers enough of its courses online. Not all do.

On cost, remember that for many students in other schools at Harvard, scholarship support is strong. Scholarship support at HES is very limited.

I'm looking at HES for grad school work - possibly for an ALM in Government. A three credit course at the graduate level costs $2200, and you need twelve courses and a thesis to graduate. This would be far less money for a Master's in Government than if I went the full monty and attended the Kennedy School of Government.

A couple corrections here: Your eligible courses for an ALM in government, like most courses at HES, are 4 semester hours each. For the ALM in government, the requirement is nine eligible courses and a thesis. 4 x 9 = 36, equal in total but not in course count to the 12 course x 3 sh master's degrees you might see at other schools.

Is the teaching and coursework the same quality as those who attend lectures in person? I have been told it is. You get the same instructors and same assignments, you have access to their extensive library network and to their mentors.

I wouldn't say either yes or no. There are important subtleties.

There are always qualitative differences between attending a lecture in person and watching it on video on your computer.

I've seen several HES courses where there are differences in assignments for on- and off-campus students, given very practical constraints. IIRC in one example, on-campus students could fulfill a requirement with a presentation to the class or a research paper, whereas online students had to fulfill it with the research paper. It's also typical for online students to be assigned a different Teaching Fellow (TA) from on-campus students.

On libraries: Once enrolled in a degree and holding an HUID card, you'd have fairly good access to the Harvard University library system. This might be limited at some of the professional school libraries, possibly including the HKS and HBS libraries. If you don't have a HUID card – as a course-taker before degree matriculation, you won't have an HUID card – you'll have fairly limited access to Harvard libraries.

What do you mean by "access to their mentors?" If there's a mentorship program, career program, etc. based at Harvard College, HKS, HBS, GSAS, etc., you might not have access to it. The Office of Career Services offers some services to HES students, but some of its funding is specifically from, and programming specifically for, Harvard College.

You didn't ask this directly, but you might have also meant to ask whether teaching, coursework, and instructor assignments differ between HES courses and HKS (for instance) courses. These do differ. If you've been told that HES and HKS (for instance) courses are the same, that was materially incorrect. There is some overlap between HES and HKS (for instance) faculty, but each faculty is different as a group.

I'd also strongly that recommend you search, and perhaps bring other specific questions, to degreeinfo.com where there are other posters experienced with HES, including at least one with the ALM in government.

[Jonathan Whatley]

As a general rule, do not come to Harvard Extension School for access to "the Harvard network" outside the walls of the campus.

Absolutely, do not come to Harvard Extension School expecting a close replica of a program from the Harvard Kennedy School or Harvard Business School.

Now, I came to Harvard Extension School expecting a program of undergraduate hard-science coursework reasonably similar to coursework from Harvard College, and my interpretation of the evidence suggests that I'm getting it. Some of the difference between my situation and my "do not" situations comes from the nature of the courses. Some of it further comes from faculty overlap, and I believe there's much more faculty overlap between HES and HC in these courses than there is between HES government courses and HKS, or HES management courses and HBS. The HES General Chemistry instructor team-teaches in the corresponding course for HC. The Director of Physical Sciences Education for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (which includes HES and HC), who also team-teaches in the corresponding course for HC, is taking over HES Physics next year.

Do consider coming to Harvard Extension School for high-quality coursework from a school at Harvard University.

[cookderosa]

My daughter has been at HES for a few semesters now. !

I'm just so so so proud of her.

[mcjon77]

I graduate from HES with an ALM in Information Technology this past May. For a bit of background, my BA is in Government from Georgetown.

Regarding your relationship with the the larger university, until you get admitted into a degree program you are just someone taking classes. You have no real standing in the university (aside from a cool @fas.harvard.edu email address). Once you become admitted, you are a full member of the university, just like the other schools. I was on campus in my final semester (last spring). The only thing that I saw different was that there was some debate as to whether admitted full time ALM candidates were eligible for graduate housing. I heard two different things from two different university administrators.

Regarding how you are treated on campus, I was treated absolutely splendidly. In fact, on some occasions it was other Harvard employees and students that had to remind me of all of the privileges that I had as a student. I made friends with folks from HC, GSAS, HKS, HSGE, and HLS. I never saw many HBS people, primarily because their campus is not with the main campus.

Regarding studying Government at Harvard. Keep in mind that there are (aside from HES) departments in TWO separate schools that offer study in the field of government. You already know about HKS, but do not forget about the Government department in the FAS (Faculty of Arts and Sciences). The FAS government department runs the undergraduate government major as well as the PhD in government program. HKS and FAS have completely different faculty, although students of one school can also take courses from another school, and sometime HKS faculty teach in FAS. HES seems to get the vast majority of their government professors from both FAS and HKS.

If I were to offer any criticism of doing an ALM at HES, it would be the distance learning format. The DL format does not lend itself to class discussion that can be so valuable in non-technical courses. HOWEVER, my undergrad (Georgetown) was considered to be very strong in the government/international relations field, and the VAST majority of my classes (with the notable exception of the political theory courses) were lectures with minimal discussion. I probably could have gotten about as much from the classes themselves in a DL format as I did in person.

The HUGE benefit to being on campus at a school like Harvard if you are majoring in government (IMHO) is attending the lectures/presentations/discussions put on by world leaders/influencers that occur in the evenings. Those are in abundance at Harvard, and if you are an admitted degree candidate you can attend (assuming you are on campus). For that reason, you MIGHT want to consider doing a semester on campus.

One additional note, several people use the HES ALM as a stepping stone to a PhD program somewhere. I know one girl who did the ALM in International Relations and used that to get a fully funded spot in a PhD program at the University of Wisconsin. At commencement this past May, the student who performed the graduate student address was graduating from HKS with an MPP. He actually did his undergrad at HES and went straight into HKS after getting his ALB.

If you have any other questions, let me know.

[cookderosa]

“The fishing is best where the fewest go and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone is aiming for base hits.”
― Timothy Ferriss


just had to throw that in
It's easy to say HES isn't this or it isn't that, but the experience of those from this board who have attended for one class or an entire degree suggests that it is an excellent school option. My suggestion is to take a class before deciding. Once I took a course (online) I was hooked. HES offered the best distance learning courses I'd ever completed. Yes, it's distance, but they really really try to do it well. Live streaming and chat, video lectures, assignments - not busy work. Every other program, including the master's I just finished, didn't hold a candle to HES.

[corpsole2]

Guys, you have given invaluable information and insight. This makes me really want to do it!

How writing intensive were the courses, in particular, the graduate courses? I know there is a ton of reading in grad school, and a few of my friends in grad school seem to talk of nothing else but their next writing assignment. Are they precis, short reports, or longer papers? Writing a thesis is not problem for me, since I did that to finish my undergrad work. I just want to know what is expected so I am not shocked when I first come in.