<p>Uh, if you are still referring to the Laura Callahan case, then please, read the post that I provided to get your facts straight.</p>
<p>Let me give you the pertinent quotes:</p>
<p>"Callahan has been on leave since June 5 after Washington Technology and Government Computer News reported that she had obtained her bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees from Hamilton University, an alleged diploma mill. "</p>
<p>"The Office of Personnel Management only recognizes degrees from accredited institutions "</p>
<p>I have a vendetta against Berkeley? Really? So then why have I written numerous posts actually praising Berkeley and defending Berkeley against detractors? Does that sound like something a person who has a vendetta would do?</p>
<p>Specifically regarding Berkeley, it is true that there are some things I don’t like about the school and that I think should change. I have been quite vocal about those opinions and I see no reason why I shouldn’t be. But then there are other things that I like very much about the school and I have stated those opinions also.</p>
<p>“Uh, if you are still referring to the Laura Callahan case, then please, read the post that I provided to get your facts straight.”</p>
<p>I don’t think we are referring to the same case. I don’t remember the name, but in the story I saw on TV they emphasized that she had a bachelor’s from a real university but they fired her anyway because of the advanced degree from the paper mill. I guess they could have butchered the story, but that’s what I remember.</p>
<p>Ah, but that’s a different story, and brings in a number of different issues, a few of which I will enumerate.</p>
<h1>1 - Most states are at-will states which basically means that companies can fire you any time they want for any reason or no reason at all.</h1>
<p>Let me give you just a few examples of ostensibly ‘ridiculous’ firings:</p>
<p>“I was once fired because I couldn’t play basketball. The company fielded a team in what was then the NIBL (National Industrial Basketball League). Each year they sent letters to all college grads over 6’5” in height inviting them to explore employment opportunities at the company. I was in a sales and management training program. They needed a slot for a new phenom. I was last one hired, so I was first one fired.“”</p>
<p>“When I was 16 I worked at a local car dealership in the parts room. The man that was my boss also went to church with me and knew my family very well. My future sister-in-law also worked with us. After only working with them for two months, my boss called me into his office one day and told me that he felt he had to let me go. His reasoning? He felt that the men that worked there were a bad influence on me and he thought I was too innocent to be able to ignore them and not take up “worldly ways”. (My sister-in-law worked another year for him!)”</p>
<p>"I had been working for a mortgage company as a developer for 18 months and things were going well. Then, one day I saw that a different group in my company had just finished up a pot-luck and had some pizza left over. I thought they would probably end up throwing it away and I was kind of hungry so I went for it … I took a slice of pizza.</p>
<p>Apparently the employees who threw this pot luck were planning to take it home and were offended by my action. Now I thought we were all basically on the same team and if someone didn’t like what I did they would tell me so and I would apologize and maybe offer to pay for the pizza. These employees ended up telling their manager, who told her vice president about what I did.</p>
<p>The worst part about this is that I wasn’t told about any of this until a month after the incident. No warning, no second chance.</p>
<p>I know that I left an impression because to this day my former coworkers refer to unattended pizza as “programmer bait”."</p>
<p>Hence, the truth is, if a private sector company wants to fire somebody, it doesn’t even need a reason. It can fire them at any time. You can be the absolute best employee in the company and still get fired anyway. </p>
<h1>2 - As I have always said, the key is to actually get the job in the first place. You can’t be fired from a job if you don’t get the job. And getting a job requires self-marketing. A resume is a marketing document, nothing more. I see nothing wrong with that. While you can’t outright lie on your resume, you don’t have to volunteer any extra information either. Just like McDonalds can’t actually say in its ads that the Big Mac has only 200 calories (when it clearly does not), but what it can do is simply not mention the calories at all. That is perfectly above-board.</h1>
<p>If there is no actual rule that states that you have to say that your degree is from the extension school, then you don’t have to mention it. Note, that’s not to say that you should never mention it. To some extent I can agree with ClassicRockerDad that if you have reason to believe that a particular employer is highly trustworthy or otherwise deserves the complete truth, then you may well choose to reveal the information. But my point is that you’re not REQUIRED to reveal it. It’s up to you. You are perfectly within your rights to not reveal it. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that the purpose of a resume is to get a job. It is not a testimonial to God. It is a marketing document, nothing more.</p>
<p>probably not. The prestige of Harvard is in being accepted and attending. It’s the selective nature of the process that makes a degree worthwhile. A Harvard extension is no means close to the level of prestige that is attributed to an actual student at the college who went through the full application process. My counselor said that the program was to educate members in the community. If someone utilizes it to take advantage of the Harvard reputation, it’s laughable. Extension isn’t much stronger than a community college.</p>
<p>Harvard Extension seems to have a SOCIAL stigma, not a legal stigma because ON PAPER, the school is as legitimate as the College or the GSAS. The distinction between the degrees conferred by the College and the ES are in the ALB and the AB. Nothing else. No graduate of the extension school should have to put down HES on their resume. </p>
<p>The only reason why people assume that someone “must” put HES on their resume is to clarify a distinction that not even the University itself says has to be made. So what people in this thread are saying is that Harvard Extension students should be obligated to put HES on their resume so an employer can evaluate the fact that they didn’t attend the College. How absurd! The university itself tells its graduates not to put extension on the resume because in reality (like I was told) there is no such thing as an extension degree. All degrees are awarded by the University and classes are just taken through the extension school. </p>
<p>It is clear that people want to make the distinction between the College and the ES very evident in order to embarass the Extension School. It is clear that the Extension Schools problem is SOCIAL not LEGAL. Sadly this will probably never change and its one of the reasons why I will never attend. I feel sorry for those that have gone through the rigorous program only to come out with a brilliant degree that will always bear a social stigma. </p>
<p>I thought this type of elitism was long dead but its still alive and well.</p>
<p>Look if you guys want to look at it another way. I asked a friend of mine from Germany a while back about this particular program. He said that if he had the chance, he would go for it. I told him about the social stigma the degree had and the elitism that is overbearing in high places, and he just laughed at me. He reminded me that Harvard is Harvard. He said that if he took that degree back to Germany he would move twenty spaces ahead of everyone else. Another friend of mine from Imperial College in the UK was urging me to apply to their bachelors program because he felt it was the ultimate bargain. He reassured me that the type of squabbles over Extension, College, GSAS that we have here in the US wouldn’t even come up in a conversation over there in the UK.
Point is, abroad, they do not care if the degree came from the ES or the College. Their outlook is, if its a non-traditional program, then it must be the BEST non-traditional program in the world. I mean why would Harvard try to sour its name (and we all know how much its concerned with that) by attaching a low grade instution to its set of highly ranked schools? It wouldn’t. So its spurios to think of it as such and we should look at the school for what it is; a great non-traditional school of Harvard University.</p>
<p>ruben you are so right, a person can sit in the Same classroom, with the Prof, graded the same way, having the same homework, etc…but that isn’t good enough because for some because you didnt’ hang out enough in the library or in the dorm…interesting that in order to have a Harvard degree count to some people you need to have done it just one way, seems Harvard doesn’t much agree with that</p>
<p>and I find it sad, that the “prestige” is only from being accepted, something that is all about HS, not college, and to have to fall back on “oh I was accepted back when I was 18” woohoo</p>
<p>“the full application” process…what does that have to do with anything? it has nothing to do with it, and its that attitude of look at what I did way back in HS", I am 28 now, but ten years ago I did an application</p>
<p>So what if you didn’t play the application game and now are taking Harvard classes? Good for you for that. And I can’t imagine Harvard would do anything to hurt its reputation by having anything less with its name on it…</p>
<p>If some are insecure to “share” the harvard name bacause someone didn’t follow the same path and sit next to you in the square, you need to get over yourself…</p>
<p>If you earned that grade in that class and are held IN THE CLASS to the same standards as any other harvard student, no one has the right to say, but whawha, they didn’t fill out an application like I did!!!</p>
<p>I completely agree. I think much of the problem stems from 2 sources, but with generally the same motivation:</p>
<h1>1 - Students who went to Harvard College and now want to maintain their aura of exclusivity by preventing extension students from invoking the same brand name.</h1>
<h1>2 - Those people who couldn’t get into Harvard College and are now threatened by the fact that other people who they deem to be ‘unworthy’ may be able to invoke the Harvard moniker when they themselves cannot.</h1>
<p>Interestingly, I have also noticed in this thread that nobody seems to have any problem with somebody who got into Harvard College just because Daddy donated a giant chunk of dough, or because he’s descended from a famous legacy family*. In particular, nobody is declaring that those students should have to disclose to employers that they got into Harvard College through what is basically a backdoor. But why not? After all, if you believe in complete honesty, then you should be honest about how your family connections allowed to circumvent the regular admissions process employer, right? Yet nobody seems to have a problem with these people invoking the Harvard brand name. It’s only the extension students that seem to draw the ire. It’s a case of selective indignation. </p>
<p>Look, what I will say is this. For those people who have a problem with what Harvard is doing with regards to the extension program, fine, take it up with Harvard itself. Ask Harvard why extension students are allowed to invoke the same brand name as other students. Maybe you can convince Harvard to shut down the extension school or at least not offer degrees under the general Harvard brand name. {Yet, given that the extension school is about a century old, I wouldn’t hold my breath.} But as it stands now, Harvard itself states that the extension students do not have to disclose to employers any information regarding the extension school and that they are allowed to use the same general Harvard brand name as the other students do. Maybe Harvard is wrong in doing so, but hey, Harvard is allowed to do whatever they want with their own brand name. If you don’t like it, take it up with them. </p>
<p>But don’t blame the extension students. They are simply following the rules. It’s not their fault that the rules are what they are. </p>
<p>*For example, how exactly did all four of Al Gore’s children all go to Harvard College? Sure, perhaps they’re all highly talented, but we all know that Ivy college admissions are all highly unpredictable, with plenty of superstar high school students getting rejected, yet every one of the Gore children got into Harvard purely on merit? That strains credulity.</p>
<p>“*For example, how exactly did all four of Al Gore’s children all go to Harvard College? Sure, perhaps they’re all highly talented, but we all know that Ivy college admissions are all highly unpredictable, with plenty of superstar high school students getting rejected, yet every one of the Gore children got into Harvard purely on merit? That strains credulity.”</p>
<p>There’s absolutely no secret that being the kid of a celebrity or a multimillionaire donor is a big tip (in this case a “push” factor) as long as the student has the requisite credentials. For Harvard, admissions officers sa that the lowest acceptable stats are approximately a 600 cr, 600 m and 3.0 average.</p>
<p>Given Gore’s brilliance and access to enrichment resources for his kids, I’d anticipate that his kids had stats well above Havard’s minimum (which very few students slip in with). I know plenty of families in which the parent are brilliant and all of the kids are brilliant.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Harvard’s admissions dean has said that 90% of Harvard’s applicants qualify for admission based on their stats. It’s other factors including ECs, essays, SES, religion, athletic ability, etc. that determine who gets in.</p>
<p>I’m sure the Gore kids might have been brilliant. But on the other hand, I too know plenty of brilliant kids who didn’t get into Harvard, the proof being that they got into other top-ranked schools (i.e. Caltech, MIT, Stanford, Yale, etc.) But not only did they not only get into Harvard, heck, they didn’t even get onto the Harvard *wait-list. * </p>
<p>I’ll give you a case in point. I know one family that had 3 girls, all brilliant. One of them did indeed go to Harvard. But the other 2 weren’t even invited onto the Harvard wait-list. Yet the one girl who went to Harvard freely admits that she thinks her sisters were actually harder-working and accomplished more impressive feats than she did while in high school. Yet she got into Harvard and her 2 sisters didn’t. {Note, I don’t exactly feel sorry for them as those 2 sisters also got into top schools, but it simply illustrates the point that Harvard admissions are highly random.} </p>
<p>Yet all four of Gore’s kids got into Harvard? I might believe that 1 or 2 might be able to get in purely by their own merits. But all four??? I highly doubt that that’s a coincidence.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yet if you follow the logic of this thread, you should then believe that that percentage - however small - who got in because of push factors, should have to disclose that fact to employers. After all, they got in through what is essentially a backdoor, and as others here have stated, it is unethical not to disclose the truth to employers, right? According to the logic, it is unethical to leave the false impression that you survived the same admissions gauntlet that others did, right? </p>
<p>That gets back to my stance, which basically comes down to the question: how honest do you really need to be with employers? Like I have always said, employers are not your friends. You don’t owe them the complete truth, just like employers often times won’t reveal the complete truth to you. The act of hiring is a business transaction, nothing more, nothing less.</p>
<p>“Yet all four of Gore’s kids got into Harvard? I might believe that 1 or 2 might be able to get in purely by their own merits. But all four??? I highly doubt that that’s a coincidence”</p>
<p>I agree with you. They more than likely got in because they had the stats to get in – and also had a father who not only was an alum (a wealthy one at that) but also was one of the country’s top politicians. Incidentally, a few years ago, I read about a first gen American family, low income, that got, I think, 5 kids into Harvard, so it’s not just the wealthy and celebrities who can beat the odds by tip factors.</p>
<p>If Bill Gates had 10 kids each with SATs of 1800, 3.0 averages, odds are that each would get into Harvard unless they had some major blotch on their records like a felony conviction.</p>
<p>“: how honest do you really need to be with employers? Like I have always said, employers are not your friends. You don’t owe them the complete truth, just like employers often times won’t reveal the complete truth to you. The act of hiring is a business transaction, nothing more, nothing less”</p>
<p>You need to be honest enough that if they find out the truth, they won’t feel that you lied to them.</p>
<p>For instance, I’m in my mid 50s and look 10 years older. I can hide my age by not putting my graduation dates on my resume and not saying things in an interview that indicate my age (such as not mentioning being in college when 18-year-olds got the right to vote). </p>
<p>I can’t hide my age, though, by an outright lie such as putting a false graduation date on my resume.</p>
<p>Sure, prospective employers are not my friends, but overall in my life, I avoid telling lies – to enemies and to friends.</p>
<p>Ah, found the story about the five sibs who graduated from Harvard. From the Harvard Gazette:</p>
<p>"It’s been 16 years since the first of Ray and Rose Chavez’s five children graduated from Harvard. This year’s Commencement will mark the culmination of a dream when Elena, the fifth and last from a family that scrimped and saved their way to five Harvard educations, receives her diploma.
“My parents would make any sacrifice for education,” Elena Chavez said. "One of the main things for my mom was to have a voice. [She taught us to] take pride in our heritage, speak the language and at the same time be part of the best academic institution in the country…</p>
<p>Well, I’ve had experience with HES and Harvard College, having taken two classes through HES last year, and auditing a class at Harvard College now. The classes I took through HES were Multivariable calculus and linear algebra; the class I’m auditing at Harvard is Math 55, basically a REALLY THEORETICAL AND INTENSE version of algebra and analysis.</p>
<p>The difference? HES didn’t have in-depth enough courses to match my mathematical needs, and the Harvard class is a LOT harder.</p>
<p>But, I am aiming for a profession in academia. Obviously, I can’t really go to HES for preparation for that. On the other hand, HES might be very good preparation for a job in finance or journalism or something.</p>
<p>there are no majors, just concentrations in either humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. You can’t really major in anything specific unless your choose a ‘field of study’ plan which allows you to major in a specific field. But even then you are limited to a small choice. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Wrong. That is only if you decide not to tack along a field of study. Besides they’re already proposing to undue the whole ‘extension studies’ from the degree. In fact, undue extension all together and make the program fit into a general studies program like what is at Columbia and Penn.</p>
<p>I am still puzzled as to what people deem o be the big lie over this issue? This isn’t even a bending of the truth. If I were to say that I recieved an ALB from Harvard University, then I would be fully in the clear. If the employer says, “hey well you went to the extension school, you lied.” I would tell him, “no sir, I did not, I explained to you that I recieved my ALB from Harvard University, NOT an AB from Harvard College”. If the employer didn’t know that, then that was HIS fault, because LEGALLY (even by Harvards own standards) that is the CORRECT way to put down your degree on a resume. PERIOD. </p>
<p>Anything else is simply playing games and making one reveal something for the sake of discrimination. Plain and simple. Harvard makes the rules, and they grant the Extension Students whatever they want to grant them (which is pretty much access to the sweetest resources in the world). Including the option to totally omit extension. The students followed the rules, passed the requirements and completed a hard program. What more do you people want out of them? To pay their whole lives for signing on to a program that many of you think is wrong? Good grief, why do you people even care? The majority of the University itself doesn’t care! I know it does upset a few Harvard College students, but why does it upset the vast majority of NON-Harvard students?</p>
<p>I don’t think it upsets anyone like you think it does, rather people on this thread were addressing OP’s question: For employers, does an HES degree carry the same weight as a non-extension degree from Harvard? Apparently, some people don’t think it does because the courses are not as rigorous and the environment is different.</p>
<p>I agree with the proposition that a person who reports an A.L.B. from Harvard University is honestly reporting an undergraduate degree from Harvard Extension School. I still answer the OP’s original question no. I’m sure a Harvard Extension degree is far better than no degree at all, but I’m sure people who care about such things at all still give much more weight to A.B. degrees from Harvard College than A.L.B. degrees from Harvard Extension School. There is a difference in the courses, and in other aspects of the degree programs, that make a difference in the reputations of each degree.</p>
<p>I happen to know the daughter of a VIP who got into a very top school-- and her SATs were not in the 600s, they were in the 500s. (I can pm you details. I don’t want to post only because it will be very obvious who she is.) I don’t have common data set #s for Harvard, but one thing that surprised me when I looked at common data set #s was that there <em>were</em> students in the country’s most competitive colleges who had been accepted with 500s on the SATs. I would think (based partly on knowing this girl from when she was applying) that some, if not most, of those students are children of VIPs. </p>
<p>When we earn something (like a coveted place in a prestigious college), we feel we ‘earned’ it. The truth is that there are a number of people who are equally deserving and someone in charge made a decision. Sometimes it may be because our credentials were higher but sometimes they were not. Let me quote a person who recently turned me down for a job, “Sometimes the person who gets the job isn’t the most qualified or the most experienced. It is the person who is the best fit.” For the record, the best fit for that job was a 20-something-year-old who hasn’t a clue. I’m sure she thinks she deserved it too. </p>
<p>A question for those who are critical of HES degrees-- are you equally critical of U-Penn and Columbia’s General Studies programs?</p>