New from Harvard Extension School

[Jonathan Whatley]

The issue with saying "I went to Harvard" is that you actually would not have gone to Harvard. The Harvard Extension School is an open admissions aspect of the school and lacks to admissions rigor that other schools within the university have. Does it fall under the branding of Harvard? Sure.

Courses are open enrollment, but degree programs are not open admission. HES degree program admission requires "academic distinction in… initial degree courses."

However, the school itself made a post on their website I believe showing the proper way of listing the school on their resume as "Harvard Extension School" since I am sure a lot of people were doing "Harvard University" creating a false credential.

This is very mistaken. Harvard University is not a false credential. The current HES résumé and cover letter guide shows sample résumés with several recommended options:

• Harvard University Extension School
  
• Harvard University, Extension School
  
• Harvard University (see the listing for the graduate certificate in Jim Wang's résumé, and an individual course in Susan R. Smith's)
  

Like Harvard College, GSAS and others, Harvard Extension School falls entirely within the regional accreditation of Harvard University. While omitting Harvard University and only listing Harvard Extension School wouldn't be wrong, there's the risk that an automated résumé screening wouldn't match "Harvard Extension School" with the accredited university of which it's a unit.

You're right that the Extension School occasionally lays down the law to remind people not to misrepresent the school, but you're wrong about the form of the misrepresentation. Harvard Extension School is a subset of Harvard University and Harvard. No misrepresentation there. It is a problem if someone misrepresents Harvard Extension School as a different academic unit, such as Harvard College or Harvard Business School. It is a problem if someone misrepresents a program like the Bachelor of Liberal Arts (offered by HES) as a different program, like the Bachelor of Arts (offered by Harvard College).

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This program is titled the same way as their on-campus Masters of Computer and Information Technology (found here: https://www.cis.upenn.edu/prospective-st...e/mcit.php ) and they both come from their School of Engineering and Applied Science. They do not differentiate online student from on-campus students on the degree or transcript.

That's a plus, then, for students for whom that's important.

So Penn differentiates in some programs (the BAAS from LPS vs. the BA from the College of Arts and Sciences traditional students earn) but not others (MCIT). But the same is true of Harvard (differentiated: the ALB from HES vs. the BA from Harvard College; not differentiated: the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health offers the MPH in several fields predominantly on campus, but the MPH in Epidemiology is blended for all students).