43% of Harvard's White Students are ALDC Admits

Some universities are like clubs. They're exclusivity comes from the fact that they exclude people. (How's that for a tautology?) We agree. But that's not all there is to it.

The reason why the Harvards of the world are prestigious also comes from their quality. We agree again that society would benefit far more from improving access to that greatness, rather than keeping to the few who are not excluded.

If the degree is issued by--and states it--by Harvard Extension, then one has a Harvard degree from that particular college of Harvard. Is it a distinction without a difference? I don't think so, assuming Harvard Extension issues its own degrees. I think it matters and one's records should reflect that difference. This is not unlike going to UM Global Campus. They are a university within the UM system and issue their own degrees. One's resume and LinkedIn page should reflect that difference, just like graduating from UC Davis isn't the same as graduating from Cal Berkeley, even though they're both the University of California. If failing to make the distinction creates a material difference, then one should make the distinction.

But....if Harvard Extension is just a pathway to a Harvard degree, then one earns a Harvard degree. I was enrolled in the Centre for Labour Market Studies at the University of Leicester. It was a semi-autonomous shop, a skunkworks, if you will. However, it is the university, not the CLMS, that is the degree-granting authority. Had I graduated when the CLMS still existed, I would have been a graduate of the University of Leicester. (The CLMS was folded into the already-existing College of Management, so the point became moot.)

TL;DR: More access and pathways to the same education and degrees. But if the degree is different, say so.

 

Degree candidates at HES are admitted to Harvard University proper. Your argument that they "accumulate dissimilar outcomes" isn't full formed either. Dissimilar to which school? The Divinity School? Harvard College? There's a wide variance in outcomes across the different schools. Even within HC there is substantial difference in the ROI on an anthropology concentration (~-$600,000) and a computer science concentration (~$1,000,000).

HES is marketed towards working professionals in the middle of their career, its not a surpriise that their experience would be different than that of a 19 year old full time student.

 

I have not seen any reliable source indicating that HES degrees are awarded solely by HES. A quick google image search shows that the top of the diploma states, rather prominently, "Harvard University."

Graduating from the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell makes you a Cornell alumnus just as surely as graduating from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences even though one is an endowed college and one is a so-called "contract" college. Contrary to Ms. Coulter's protestations there is no distinction between "Ivy League Cornell and Dairy Farm Cornell." There is one Cornell and degrees from any of its constituent colleges make one a graduate of Cornell, period.

Likewise, a graduate of HES is a graduate of Harvard University. Period. Full stop. Harvard is issuing the diploma.

This is very much not the same thing as graduating from UC Davis and saying you graduated from UC Berkeley. Those are different universities. That they are part of the same system is irrelevant. SUNY is a system. But each college therein is a separate college with its own accreditation, its own trustees, its own President. Compare this to Penn State where the campuses scattered around the state are all part of Penn State. Penn State Worthington is not a separate school. It is a campus of Penn State in State College, PA. In one case you're talking about individual and largely autonomous universities and in the other you are talking about one university with constituent campuses.

If a person attends Penn State through, say, the World Campus, they are perfectly entitled to say they are Penn State alumni. If they casually mention their fun times in State College, PA not mentioning that they were only ever there as visitors and never actually took classes at that location, well, it's dishonest but it doesn't change the fact that they are graduates of Penn State. If you say you went to UCB when you actually went to UC Davis, you're lying about your degree granting institution just the same as saying you went to Boston College when you actually went to Boston University.

 

I think that means a graduate of HES is a "Harvard graduate."

The original notion (not yours)--that Harvard doesn't exclude people since it has HES, is still faulty. Graduating from Harvard means a lot more than just the degree and the learning that went into it.

What about someone who graduates from Penn State-Harrisburg? It's not the same as Penn State, which is located in State College, PA. Should a graduate of that particular campus note the difference?

(Again, like UC Davis isn't the same as the home campus, the University of California, which is located in Berkeley. Saying you were a graduate of "Cal" when you went to UC Davis would be misleading, right?)

I ask because I believe the World Campus is run by Penn State-Harrisburg. We went to that campus--not State College, PA--when my son graduated with his master's done at the World Campus. And a degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore (The Retrievers!), isn't the same as a degree from the University of Maryland (Terrapins).

Interestingly (?), the UM Global campus has more students enrolled in it than any other school in the UM system--56% more than the flagship UM. Go Fighting Onliners!

 

Actually, it is the same. Unlike some schools that indicate the campus on the degree, Penn State does not. Are you sure that PSU World Campus is operated by PSU-Harrisburg? The address reads University Park, PA, which is Penn State's main campus in State College, PA.

"Penn State World Campus is the “real” Penn State. Every student — regardless of their campus — receives an identical diploma or certificate that signifies they have completed a Penn State program. There is nothing on the certificate to indicate whether courses were taken online or on campus."

https://www.worldcampus.psu.edu/about-us/news-and-features/what-will-your-penn-state-world-campus-certificate-look-like

 

Why exactly are you comparing a public university system to a private university? Each public university in the university system is its own university, just as Harvard is its own university. Each university is made up of different schools: education, business, nursing, medical, etc. Every student at every school is a member of that university. Harvard just happens to have a school dedicated to continuing education that is within its Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Extension student are no less Harvard students than students at Harvard's medical or business schools. You can certainly argue whether the rigor is the same, but it is a matter of fact that Extension students are students enrolled at Harvard University.

 

I was until now. That's where we went to commencement, but I don't have a lot to go on otherwise. Thanks for that corrective information. It's very helpful in making these distinctions.

 

Uh, because I wanted to?

Yeah, we already established that. Thanks.

 

Here's an interesting distinction (which I'm sure has been discussed on this board before in other threads). The degree awarded for the master's in management program:

Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) in Extension Studies, field: Management.

The undergraduate degree is"

Bachelor of Liberal Arts (ALB) in Extension Studies.

The point I was making was against this statement by another poster:

"If Harvard Extension = Harvard (according to maybe half of the people in this board), then doesn't Harvard U open its doors to everyone without preference?"

The answer to that point is a resounding "no." The pathway provided by HES leads to some very narrowly-defined degrees in "Extension Studies." In no meaningful way does that "open its doors to everyone without preference."

TL;DR: Is a degree earned through HES a Harvard degree? You bet. Does the HES open up Harvard to everyone? Of course not. Despite any semantical exercises, no.

Still, I bet the learning is pretty cool and the degree is highly valuable. With courses being delivered online (for now, but I suspect you'll still have to do the on-campus courses and time), it's probably pretty accessible. I wonder if it is competitive, or if they accept all qualified applicants? You get admitted by completing three courses (their selection), but being admitted to that may or may not be competitive--or, perhaps, selective.

 

My point is that it is a terrible comparison, particularly from someone well-versed enough to be working on a doctoral thesis. You know the difference between universities in a university system and schools within a university.

It certainly depends on how you define what "Harvard" is. HES students get access to the library, many of the same professors, and the Harvard alumni network.

 

I think now more than ever online learning is blurring these lines for many university systems. The UC system schools are independent (I'm an alum of both UC Irvine and UCLA and consider myself an alum of the UC system and not UC Berkeley). However, I'm also an alum of the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities) but you will find graduates of Rochester or Morris as well just state themselves as U of Minnesota alumni.

Also, Penn State World Campus is Penn State Online and based out of University Park. https://www.worldcampus.psu.edu/about-us

 

Who is that? And is that person working on said dissertation in these discussion threads? That would seem an odd place to do it.

 

Penn State campuses do not award their own degrees. You would never note "Penn State Harrisburg" as your school. There is no such school. You are a graduate of Pennsylvania State University. I know of very few instances where it would be necessary to list the specific campus you took the bulk of your coursework at. Many PSU campuses are little more than office buildings with classrooms and some administrative support. Nor are you restricted to taking courses at a particular campus. You could, if inclined, take half of your classes in Harrisburg and the other half in Hazleton. Or you can take courses at all different campuses. The courses don't need to "transfer" because you're in the same school, not just school system.

Compare to SUNY. Binghamton University (Formerly SUNY Binghamton) and SUNY Cortland are different institutions in the same SUNY system. Each has its own President. If you leave one school and go to the other, you have to transfer and are subject to transfer limits. Each is separately accredited. PSU-Harrisburg is just a learning site.

Now, where you might need to make a distinction is (and I think Levicoff once brought this up) is to the question of "where did you go to college?" which he noted was different from "where did you earn your degree?"

If I earned a fully remote Masters from Harvard then one might quibble that I did not "go" to Harvard. I earned my degree from Harvard, yes. But I didn't go there.

Same is true with PSU, in my experience. People who went to State College take a great deal of pride in it and sometimes people do have an elitist view of graduating from one of the branch campuses. As in "Did you hear Charlie's kid graduated from Penn State?" "Yeah, but Penn State Harrisburg..."

Thing is though that Charlie's kid's diploma doesn't reflect that.

The obsession around State College has more to do with the feeling, I think, of "going away" to school versus studying locally and there is a not-insignificant amount of football adoration around it.

UC Davis seems to fit more the SUNY model than the California model. UC Davis is not a campus of the University of California. It is a standalone institution, like Binghamton University is within the SUNY system, under a state university umbrella.

PSU Worthington is not separately accredited, for example. UC Davis maintains its own accreditation and legal structure.

 

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It's funny you called it Penn State Worthington. When I moved to Northeast PA in 2013, that was the name. However, I'm sure you know it changed to Penn State Scranton in 2018.

 

It was called Penn State Worthington for many, many years. And I left that area well before 2018. As far as I can tell it hasn't changed the culture around it locally, either.

Though Worthington campus was also a weird anomaly among the Penn State campuses. All of the others were named for the location. Worthington was like a technicality as it was named after Worthington Scranton.

Of course, Penn State Wilkes-Barre is also not in Wilkes-Barre

 

Haha, that's true. Even Penn State Scranton is not in Scranton. It's in the neighboring Dunmore.

 

That is true.

Though I will say the difference between Dunmore and Scranton is negligible. You can cross back and forth and never realize it.

Dallas, as the crow flies, is only a few miles from Wilkes-Barre. However, it is separated by mountains. Penn State Wilkes Barre is closer to Misericordia University than anything in Wilkes Barre and is located on a very rural campus. It's cute. It's like a standalone college but...tiny. You could probably fit five or six of the campus within the quad of Marywood University which itself is hilariously small.

 

False. Legacy is not synonymous with LDC or ALDC. Other tables show the combined effects of ALDC and LDC. Legacy is just one preference. This article is about the combined effect of ALDC.