USC Columbia or Harvard Extension School

HappyAlumnus
Sun, 31 Jul 2016 02:19:01 +0000

@TomSrOfBoston, Harvard Extension School is one of the degree-granting schools of Harvard University. However, it is NOT by any measure one of the “real” Harvard schools: the schools with very competitive admissions and strong alumni outcomes.

HES is not geared for everyone “who may not have had the privilege of attending other schools at Harvard”; that group encompasses everyone from MIT, Tufts and Brandeis students to UMass-Boston ones.

Rather, HES is more or less a community college or school of continuing education, aimed at working adults who take a class here and there; it does not serve the same student body that other “real” universities serve.

@TomSrOfBoston’s post is deeply misleading: HES does not award the same bachelor’s and master’s degrees as other Harvard schools. To the few people who do more than take an HES course here and there, HES awards degrees such as “Master of Arts in Extension Studies”–degrees that by and large are offered only at HES and are given names (such as the one I list, instead of, for example, “Masters in French Literature”) to ensure that they are never confused for a “real” Harvard degree. HES even requires its students to list “Extension School” and “Extension Studies” on their resumes so that they don’t get confused with “real” Harvard students.

It is hard for people like @TomSrOfBoston to realize what HES is: it’s not a school for people who have worked their tails off and met the admissions standards at Harvard College, Harvard Business School or others. Nor is it a school that will give you prestige and credibility. It’s a community college. It advertises on public transportation. Other Ivy League universities have similar things. Don’t leave a “real” university for it, particularly USC Columbia, which is a fine school.

And no, @TomSrOfBoston, I’m not a “Harvard elitist”, despite your slur. I’m simply someone who struggled immensely and worked extremely hard–much harder than my classmates–and earned admission in a “real” Harvard school, due to years of extremely hard work and focus. It was not a “privilege” handed to me. So you need to knock off bashing and resenting who work hard.