Harvard University

Started in 1636, older than the calculus and with financial endowment ($39.2 Billion) larger than half of the world’s economies, the name Harvard is synonymous as the institution of excellence and academic grooming of highest caliber. Harvard University's notable alumni list contains eight U.S. presidents like John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, 359 Rhodes Scholars, 242 Marshall Scholars, and elite businessmen and multimillionaire like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg.

Harvard University is a 4-Year private-Not-For-Profit institution located at Cambridge, Massachusetts, spread across 209 acres. Harvard is an Ivy League college, a term shared by Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University. These universities are known for high academic quality and attract students from all around the world for legit reasons. It is very hard to match up with Harvard university requirements and with an acceptance rate with less than 5%, Harvard maintains its formidable reputation of grooming the best.

Harvard Online Education and Extension Education

The advent of broadband internet has completely revamped the stereotype of continuing education. A recent study showed that nearly a third of all higher-education students had taken at least one class online during the 2011 fall semester alone. More than 60% of college that otherwise offered traditional degrees only have joined the bandwagon of online education to offer the same degrees completely online.

HarvardX was created with the intention to advance research in the learning sciences and enabling the faculty to start open, online courses for on-campus, prospective and interested learners across the globe. With more than 100 open online courses, HarvardX has engaged 170 faculty across 10 schools, with more than three million unique course participants.

There are thousands who have the need and desire to obtain the degree to pursue their career and passion but are older than typical college graduates, work full-time, or are financially independent and may have family dependents. Such people are known as “nontraditional students”. Three Ivy schools--Columbia, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania--offer undergraduate and graduate degrees to the nontraditional student which are obtained largely through the evening, weekend, or online classes, making them more accessible. One such initiative from Harvard University is the Harvard Extension School which is Harvard’s degree-granting continuing education school. The open enrollment and lower tuition rates have long made extension schools appealing to such students.

Despite the flexibility of options, admissions, however, are not open to just about anyone. To gain admission as a degree candidate to HES, the primary Harvard University requirement is to complete three courses including an incredibly difficult “gatekeeper” course and obtain at least a B grade in each of them. The application process is similar and mandatory, with essays, recommendation letters, and transcripts. Harvard is hard to get into after all. But Harvard tuition fee cost comparison makes it more than worth all the efforts and time spent.

The price of one online course comes around $2000 and with 36 credit hours and thesis, the total cost of the degree requirement is less than $25,000 in total. Compared to the cost of a two-year master's degree at Harvard's Kennedy School that comes more than $90,000, HES is immensely less expensive. The online courses are categorized into the following divisions:

Subject Areas:
1. Arts and Design
2. Business
3. Computer science
4. Data Science
5. Education and Teaching
6. Health and Medicine
7. Humanities
8. Mathematics
9. Programming
10. Science
11. Social Science

Price: Free or paid.

Availability: The time durations provided are to be chosen after which the classes commence.
(Immediate, within a week, within a month, within 3 months, within 6 months, within a year)

School: With 11 divisions of the University to choose from, one can select the match and required institutions.
(Harvard Business school, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Medical school, Harvard Law school, etc)

Duration: The period of time the applicant is ready to spend on the course is provided in the options.
(0-2, 2-4, 4-6, 6-8, 8-12, 12+ WEEKS)

Difficulty: Introductory, Intermediate, Advanced levels help the student in adapting to their level of studies.

Harvard University Rankings

 Following are some of the ranking of Harvard University based on some performance indicators-

• The University is ranked 2nd in National Universities.

• It holds 34th place in Best Undergraduate Teaching category.

• It is ranked 2nd in Best Value Schools.

For more info on Tuition and Fees