For Harvard Extension School, do you take the admissions requirement courses first?

[alexf.1990]

For anyone interested, there is an edX Poetry Whitman course (free) you can take with the same instructor.  I'm working through it now to get my feet wet.  
HarvardX: AmPoX.3
Poetry in America: Whitman

I've taken grad courses (3) at HES but they are too old to use toward a degree.  They do fall off, however, if you don't need a degree, it doesn't matter.  In my case, I did think I was going to pursue a degree when I started.  The first courses I took were  Psychology and Statistics because my TESU degree was in Social Science and I thought I might go that direction. The classes were perfect in every aspect, but psychology as a career in the counseling/helping wasn't for me, so I let that go.  Later, I took a course in Biology because I worked my way through the pre-nursing/pre-med sciences and I strongly weighed my options for nursing/medicine - and also, the course was perfect - engaging, tough, interesting, a "dig deep" kind of thing.  I used my sciences as the prereqs for a nutrition master instead, pulling from my background and staying in my field.  

I didn't have the resources to pay cash- something you have to do if you're not an enrolled degree-seeking student.  For the poetry set, I do have the resources to pay cash, so I'm getting after it.  

Part 2, I wasn't able to leave my family for the full semester on campus requirement that is part of the psychology/biology degree tracks.  English is different because my cursory research shows the potential of doing the on campus courses over several learning weekends.  Weekends I can do. Nevermind that my kids are older now, it's just less logistics and cost to figure out.  Further, there are at least 3 here doing these courses, plus another 3 in my homeschooling facebook community, so I'll in a cohort with 6 other people.  The "go alone" factor would be somewhat mitigated by knowing my peeps will also be there.  Sounds fun to me actually.    

So, I think I can say that I'm going to do all 4-5 of these at $200 if only for the fact that it adds a teaching block for me (ENG teachers at the community college = insane demand) and I'm not ruling out the proseminar this spring because it is live online with 1 learning weekend.  (full price) and that's one of the degree requirements for this degree.  In other degrees, there are still barriers and a full semester courses - though I haven't looked through them all.

How demanding are the HES courses when you take them at the graduate level? The current plan is to finish a ALM in Management or Finance at HES. This semester I completed 41 credits (18 online at the CC, 8 through HBX CORe, and 15 CLEP) to finish off my associates. I got a full ride to an online bachelor's program at Western Carolina that I can easily finish by Spring 2019. The dilemma I'm running into is whether I should just finish my bachelors at WGU (not to be confused with Western Carolina), which could be done in 3-4 months, or go the traditional route and wait until next year to graduate. The only reason I haven't pulled the trigger on WGU is my concern that I might not be ready for the rigor of HES. I'd also be leaving $7-8k in grant money on the table by not attending Western Carolina. Sorry for the rambling post. I'm just glad to be able to talk to someone who has actually attended HES.