siserune

On a CV one can call the registrar to inquire. When HES affiliates discuss their status as "studying at Harvard" or "bachelor's at Harvard", that would certainly suggest to those not familiar with Harvard institutional trivia (which is most of the population, even in Boston) that the Harvard person went through the regular undergraduate or graduate selection hurdles. That would in fact be the single biggest piece of information that most people would extract from such a statement. Every HES student is well aware of that. Leaving it in the hands of the listener to find out the real story through clever suspicion or random chance is (usually, in the described situation) fudging the truth.

If somebody claims to have a degree from "Oxford" or "Cambridge University", which are (hypothetical) open-admission community colleges in obscure parts of the United States that the person in fact attended, and this person makes a point of introducing themselves in that way (not as a joke or conversation-piece), I think everyone would understand it as a deliberate distortion, even if technically correct.

Will the sky fall from this kind of stretched self-description? No. Are HES folk the only ones who do it? No. Do Harvard College students do the equivalent? Yes. Is the practice common among HES affiliates? Yes.

Harvard's policy is skating the line on this question. You can be sure that HES first bachelor's degree enrollment would drop enormously if Harvard required use of the words "Extension School" in the CV.

There's the fudging: "HES grads". The overwhelming majority of HES grads who go to top programs already have bachelor's degrees before reaching HES; they are there for master's degrees or language study or pre-med courses that will enhance an existing degree. My statement specifically referred to the bachelor's degrees (and apparently also includes associate degrees, though I doubt those are recognized for graduate admission). You are welcome to show us how it is foolish, or in any way wrong: