Article bashes Harvard Extension ALM Grad

[rlb4104]

The author compares the subject's grad program with the admissions rate of the College undergrad program. Comparing grad and undergrad admissions criteria would be silly at any school.

The author also claims Harvard College does not accept HES credits toward their degrees - which is untrue. They do.

As for the charge of "it's misleading." Well, maybe only if you don't know how universities work. Apparently, many people don't. That's okay. We'll educate them! ?

Yeah, I can't speak for every single course or every single program, but generally speaking the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) that runs HES doesn't waste time teaching non-credit courses at their own university. There are probably examples of summer school courses or low-level "gatekeeper" courses that end up not fulfilling graduation requirements for HC, but several of my ALM (English) courses counted for dual-credit and included HC undergrads, so I know that claim is categorically false. 

The retort to that might be "Well, those were actually HC courses that were offered to HES students as well," but I don't think that distinction helps a naysayers' case. 

And as to the larger point of how much or how little recognition one should get for an HES degree: it depends. 

I'm getting an ALM in English (currently writing the thesis, expected graduation in March 2024), and in my case the GSAS doesn't offer an AM in that subject. You can either get an AB in English from the College or a Ph.D in English from GSAS: it's possible to ask to be awarded for a non-terminal AM along the way to the doctorate, but the requirements for that degree actually appear to be less than what an ALM calls for, yet it's still not an actual program you can apply for. So with that understanding, if at some point I make the claim that I "have a master's degree in English from Harvard," that would be both factually correct and defensible, even to people who understand how Harvard works.

I'll also confess, though, that my ALM in English is not something that's ever going to come up in any academic hiring conversation since I do not work in that field at all. (Far from it, frankly.) It's listed on my resume under a general education tab as simply "Master of Liberal Arts from Harvard University," which would probably rankle some Harvard alumni, but not enough for me to care. "Harvard Extension School" and "Extension Studies" are not things I care to explain in my situation, but I also won't be in circumstances where I'd be confused for a GSAS grad either. I just wanted to get back into the study of English and literature, and the fact that Harvard offered a distance option was just good fortune for me. 

I *think* where the rub might be is at the ALB level, where someone with an ALB in History (for example) from Harvard University might try and pass of that degree as being qualitatively the same as an AB in History from Harvard College. In that case, the distinction is much more significant. That doesn't mean I agree with the "Extension Studies" term hang-up, but I can sympathize with HC wanting to protect its brand.