Fake Harvard?

Reviewed consists of one of the following:
1. Grabbed a syllabus from a friend of mine who was directly enrolled in a course.
2. Enrolled as a student and reviewed the course syllabus and dropped myself once I knew that I wouldn't have time for the course given my schedule.

I have taken courses at Northeastern University, Harvard Extension, Stanford Continuing Ed, MITX and UMass. I have friends at all of these, plus family members that have attended Harvard, Penn State, Yale, Ohio State and Boston University.

So I've got a bit of experiential data, but I'm not a professional educational consultant. Also, an obvious flaw of my connections is that they've got varying experiences based on when they went to those schools. (Penn State for example, was a long time ago).

The 70% drop rate was noted as a student when in classes, granted starting in a class of 120 and seeing final project groups consisting of 10 groups of 3 is disconcerting, but attrition is attrition from a relatively small sample size of classes in STEM disciplines.

 

....my transfer comment has been overlooked.

 

I haven't overlooked it. It's just highly variable between schools and not at all central to the discussion I think I'm having with others.

 

Ahhh, I think I now understand where you are coming from; I never considered something so simple as reading the syllabus to guage the difficulty of a course.

Ok thanks, I assumed you were using an objective metric, my mistake. To offer my experiential data, I have a BS in Physics, and as I mentioned before, will finish an IT focused Masters in the next few months and I have never observed a course with anything close to a 70% drop rate that I can recall. I find your experiences interesting, but I wouldn't find very useful in judging the overall rigor of a school. I have to assume there are more valid metrics than class drop rates that could at least hint at schools' relative rigor or quality.

But, as I believe you said earlier in this thread, the difficulty of any program is relative and depends on the student. I found a number of my MBA courses very challenging, but my wife felt her UMass MBA was a vacation after finishing her Bachelors at Williams.

 

I disagree. Harvard has a policy, it's in place and in the catalog. IN FACT, courses are searchable by college acceptance into various degree programs and colleges within the university.

If a school is willing or unwilling to accept its own credit, that's the indicator of how it views its credits. If it views its extension as a cash cow to direct the flunkies who can't attend "real" school, that will be reflected in the transfer policy. If the courses readily transfer between the two, the school and accreditation bodies accept them as equals.

Of course knowing isn't nearly as much fun as speculating.

 

Then I suppose the two people who graduated from HES and went on to HBS mentioned in AuTiger's post are imaginary or decided to get another ALB from HES in addition to their other credentials from top tier schools?

Transfer policies at Harvard are slanted against HES due to internal politics and designed to prevent HES transfer to HC and other schools but they do not prevent those with HES degrees from getting into other HC and GSAS programs once completed.

I know you have some familiarity with HES. That's fine, but don't let the familiarity with the catalog convince you that all students are equally treated or that you fully understand what the options are. Honestly, I've been misdirected more times than I can count and wouldn't be surprised if I'm off.

Last. Transfer is up to the school. The accreditation body has nothing to do with it in terms of school to school acceptance; but it does provide a guideline and set an expectation.

 

>>

Huh? Not true. Any Haaavaad College student and at least 2 colleges (grad & edu) accept continuing ed taken at Harvard into degree programs. View the first page of the summer catalog, you can read all the exceptions and inclusions. I don't see a bias against its own school. Seriously though, it doesn't matter. This will be asked and debated again next month. (and the next)

 

That's only the case for the Summer School. Harvard College doesn't accept HES courses for transfer. I don't know about other Harvard grad schools, but I'd be very surprised if they accept HES credits.

 

When I was taking a summer course at Quincy College (a city-owned community college), I had a Harvard College undergrad in one of my classes, who was taking the summer course to transfer to Harvard.

If Harvard College will accept transfer credit from a two-year community college, I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't accept HES transfer credit.

 

Your classmate may have gotten special permission, or maybe the rules have changed. The current handbook says, "Degree credit will be granted only for summer school courses offered by the Harvard Summer School, except that under special circumstances credit for course work done at other institutions may be awarded provided that advance approval has been obtained." Harvard Summer School Handbook for Students 2011-2012

As for HES, the handbook says, "Sophomores, juniors, and seniors wishing to enroll in courses given by other Faculties of the University or by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (including the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology) can do so only by filing a petition for cross-registration. However, students may not enroll for degree credit in Harvard Extension School courses, Radcliffe Seminars, or in courses not given by one of the Faculties of Harvard University and MIT." Cross-Registration Handbook for Students 2011-2012

Credit earned at HES doesn't count for transfer students either. Harvard College Admissions § Applying: Transfer Program

The Extension School site addresses the same question as follows. "Please note that while Harvard Extension School credits cannot be transferred to Harvard College, qualified Extension School degree candidates in certain programs can take courses at Harvard College through the Special Student Program, and their Harvard College course credits count toward their Extension School degrees."

 

The issue with Harvard College not accepting transfer credits from HES is to discourage people from trying to "back door" into Harvard College by applying to HES then trying to transfer in. It is a real problem. On a forum for HES students we had a guy who kept trying to debate with us on how to get into Harvard College by applying to HES first.

Personally, as a HES student, I don't want our school to be filled with people that are only students there so they can transfer into Harvard College. Maybe I am selfish, but I only what folks in the degree programs at HES who want a degree through HES. If you want to use your HES degree as a stepping stone to another degree at one of the other schools in Harvard University, GREAT!! But if for those who just want to transfer because they don't think that HES is "good enough", I would prefer that they find another school to attend.

As far as Harvard College students not getting credit for Extension School courses, why would they go to HES to take classes when the same classes (often with the same instructors) are available in the day at the College? Taking classes at MIT makes sense because I am sure MIT has several classes (particularly in engineering) that are not available at Harvard College. That said, the graduate school of education allows students to take courses at the extension school (specifically the math courses) to fulfill degree requirements for the Ed.M

Also, just because many of the other schools don't do cross registration with HES does not mean that HES is low quality or "not really Harvard". The main reason, IMHO, is that unlike the other schools in the university, the primary role of HES is to transmit knowledge, rather than create it. HES, by itself doesn't contribute major research to academia. Rather, many of those professors in other schools of Harvard University who do contribute major research to academia offer access through HES. Think of HES as a portal providing access to the vast quantity of knowledge produced by the other schools within the University.

The practical implications of this is that any class one might want to cross-register in at HES from one of the other schools either a) already has an identical or similar course in one of the other schools, or b) is so specialized that it wouldn't be appropriate for a non-HES degree. Why would someone want to cross register in CSCI E-52 at the Extension School when they could just take CS50 (the EXACT SAME COURSE with the same instructor) in Harvard College. The same could be said for CSCI-E61, E207, and E124. I am speaking specifically of the computer science courses because that is what I know best. Why would you take managerial accounting at HES when the business school offers it as well?

People need to take HES for what it is, the continuing education school of Harvard University. It is no more or less a part of Harvard than the graduate school of education, or the school of public health, or the graduate school of design, or the business school, or the law school, etc.

 

CS 124 is Harvard's Algorithms and Data Structures course, taught by Michael Mitzenmacher. It's offered in-person through Harvard College and online through the Extension School as CSCI E-124. Professor Mitzenmacher posted some interesting comments about extension students and their performance in this notoriously challenging course here -- My Biased Coin: Extension Results

He also talked about why Extension students drop his class as much higher rates than Harvard College students in the discussion section of this post -- My Biased Coin: Teaching, Day One

If you've made it this far in this thread, both are worth reading.

 

I agree. I'm not sure why some people think otherwise.

As far as I can tell, there seems to be some concern because Harvard College students aren't allowed to take HES courses for credit, which in turn could imply that HES courses don't have exactly the same rigor or grading as HC courses. Maybe there is a double standard.

But even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that this is true -- so what ?? Lots of universities have two-tier degree programs: a less selective "standard" version and a more selective "honors" version. And they make it quite clear that there is a difference.

For example, here is what the University of Maryland's flagship College Park campus says about its "Honors College":

So Maryland acknowledges, quite openly, that there is a double standard: the same course can be offered in two versions. And if you want a degree from the Honors College, then obviously you have to take the honors version. The standard version of the same course may have exactly the same name and exactly the same accreditation, but you can't expect to take a standard course for credit towards an honors degree.

So the University of Maryland at College Park has two tiers for the same classes and degrees, and they are not interchangeable. So what ??

And lots of schools have "honors colleges", not just Maryland. Other examples include Arizona State, Penn State, Oregon, Pitt, Louisiana State, and Michigan State. I'm sure there are more.

 

This conversation has been beat to death. HE'S is a real school at Harvard, you graduate you're a Harvard alum. Students cross registering at any school inside the University have to get per,ission before hand for it to count as credit in their program. I know for a fact there are two courses at HES that can be taken by HKS students for credit. In this instance you pay the tuition rates of the school in which you are enrolled. Same goes for other programs. For example, a GSE student can take courses at HBS (if they make it through the lottery process) and they will pay the GSE per credit hour rate. With all Harvard programs, you must gain approval from your home program in order to gain credit for a course inside another college. It just happens that HE'S offers fewer courses that readily transfer to other programs, that's not to saytheydont exist, their are just fewer of them. Glad we sorted that out. Conversation on this topic can now cease.

 

...if only...