Acceptance rate for Harvard Extension School graduate programs?

A prospective Harvard Extension School graduate student has written me:

I am also a HES student and am considering to apply to ALM in IT. I am just wondering how do you find the admission process to your ALM in History degree, and if you know what the ALM acceptance rate is.

I told him that I have no idea what the acceptance rate is. Not only is it not published (to my knowledge), but it's also a difficult rate to measure, owing to requirements that are unlike graduate programs based on standardized tests, essays, and references.

Admission to the ALM program I am in is conditional upon several factors beyond sending in the application form (which requires two essays and a processing fee) and having the required English ability. You also have to take three graduate-level classes before you can apply, one of which is the proseminar, and have to get Bs or above in all of them.

I believe lots of people start their three classes thinking they are going to apply to the program once they have passed this step, but decide not to go on, especially after the proseminar. The proseminar is like boot camp for the ALM thesis. It's very hard, with lots of reading, writing, research, and critical thinking exercises. If you don't finish it, or get below a B, you cannot be admitted to the ALM program in History. I know in my proseminar class that a few people didn't finish -- it started with about 20, but toward the end there were only 15 or so left. I suspect a few got below a B for a final grade, which means they cannot be admitted to the ALM, unless they retake the proseminar.

After taking my three classes, and filing the application packet with the essays and my college transcript in early 2004, I was accepted very quickly. I've heard from other people who had problems with the essays that they're told what they need to fix and allowed to refile. But the essays are really not the hard part, in my opinion -- the proseminar is!

I told the person who emailed me that the IT ALM degree does not require a proseminar (but does require three graduate classes). The requirements are listed here; anyone who has experience applying for the ALM in IT program is welcome to weigh in here.

Testing LexisNexis functionality

As I mentioned in my last post about my thesis progress, I am tackling the hard-core data gathering and computation first before I return to crafting my proposal. I spent about three or four hours today formulating my search terms in LexisNexis, and carrying out sample tests. Unlike my research paper earlier in the year when I used the LexisNexis Academic GUI to formulate my searches, this time I am going to use the more primitive interface. The latter uses the GUI, but only a single field with a combination of search terms and special search words. It takes a little getting used to, but it allows me to save common searches in a separate text file, thereby reducing the chance of error when using the GUI's drop-down lists for article segments (headlines, bylines, etc.) and boolean search terms.

Learning the primitive interface also let me learn a lot about LexisNexis and its functionality, including some abilities not available with the GUI. For instance, the following search:

hlead ( Thai w/12 "boat people" )

This tells LexisNexis to scour the database for stories that have, in the headline or lead graf, the phrase "boat people" within 12 words of "Thai". It cannot be completed with the GUI, because w/n is not completely supported -- only a few numbers rounded to five.

I discovered some problems with the Xinhua data, as well. Much of it is not formatted into seperate paragraphs, meaning I cannot use searches that focus on the lead paragraph. This is a blessing and a curse. A blessing: Sometimes NCNA stories dig at Vietnam or other countries in stories that are ostensibly about some unrelated topic, so these results will be included, even if the terms show up at the end of the article. A curse: These searches will turn up some results which only refer to the terms in passing or as background, which I would rather not have to deal with.

Digital Media in Asia blog

I would like to direct some of my Asia-based readers to a new resource at Harvard, the Digital Media in Asia blog.

It's operated by the Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, a source which I have pointed to several times in the past. If you are interested in copyright, piracy, DRM issues, and Internet distribution technologies, this is a resource you should definitely subscribe to.

I get a message from Larry Summers (I think)

A few weeks back, I blogged about Harvard University President Larry Summers' 8,500-word letter to the Harvard community about Harvard's plans for the future, and my disappointment that the letter did not include a single mention of the Extension School.

I also emailed President Summers, at the address listed at the bottom of the letter. In the email I said the following:

... I was disappointed that neither the Extension School nor the Division of Continuing Education received a single mention in the 8,500 word document. There are thousands of Extension students from the United States and other countries in undergraduate and graduate degree programs, making it one of the larger professional schools among the tubs. The school is an important community resource. There are Extension programs that address the initiatives listed in your letter -- for instance, last year the DCE introduced new graduate degree programs in Biotechnology, the Environmental Management, and ALM in Mathematics for Teaching, which in my opinion mesh with Harvard's larger push in science and technology. Yet the Extension school doesn't even get a ten-word bullet point, or acknowledgement?

In the future, I hope that your administration and Dean Kirby do not overlook what's happening at the Extension School. The school, its faculty and students are part of the Harvard community, and can play a role in helping the University achieve its long-term goals.

To my surprise, President Summers actually responded to my letter yesterday. At least I think he did -- the response comes from the generic "Community Letter" email account and there is no way to verify that he actually typed it out. In any case, his response said that the omission of the Extension School was "not intentional" and that it is a valuable part of the Harvard community.

Fair enough. I do hope, however, that the school and its programs are incorporated into Harvard's long-term plans, and is recognized in future documents of this type.

Monday night ALM thesis writers' meeting

Last night I attended the ALM thesis writers' meeting for history and government concentrators. There were six of us there, all preparing to start history-related proposals or theses. We were all given a chance to discuss what we were working on, and ask Dr. Ostrowski (the research advisor) process- or topic-related questions

When it was my turn, I asked him something related to my in-progress proposal, which describes an analysis of Sino-Viet relations during the Deng Xiaoping era using a computer-assisted content analysis of New China News Agency output. Last week, I had gotten back the draft version of part II of the proposal (the part in which I put forth my hypotheses, and my methodology) from Dr. Ostrowski, with his comments. I was relieved to see that the comments related mainly to a few missing details, which can be added to the next draft relatively easily. But one of his comments did ask how much quantitative research had I already conducted.

At the ALM thesis writers' meeting, I had a chance to ask him about that. The basis of my research will consist of the data gleaned from several thousands searches on LexisNexis Academic and pasted into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. I told the group that it will take "two solid days of number crunching" to complete this step. It may be even longer -- under one scenario that includes "United States" as a variable, along with "Vietnam", "Soviet Union," "ethnic Chinese", and conflicting South China Sea territorial claims [probably "*sha", as China frequently refers to these islands by their Chinese names, Xisha and Nansha] the total number of searches including these terms singly and in combination would be more than 5000. Wouldn't it be better to wait until my proposal has been accepted, and a thesis director assigned? My concern is that I would complete all of this research in advance, only to be told to go back to the drawing board by the thesis director because my methodology or source material is flawed.

Dr. Ostrowski believes that this research should be done now. He said when he shops my finished proposal around to potential Harvard faculty, one of them will hopefully be intrigued enough by my findings and hypotheses to agree to become my thesis director. Additionally, even though I am quite certain about the general outcomes of my research, completing the research up front removes some of the uncertainty that the research advisor and potential thesis directors may have.

So that's my next step -- finding two full days to plow through my searches. As I remarked to the group, it's very hard to find the time owing to work and family obligations, but I can take a few hours here and a few hours there over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays to get this critical step done before returning to my draft proposal.

One other interesting note from the thesis writers' meeting: After it was over, someone who actually reads this blog came up to me to tell me he likes it. It was a pleasant surprise, because I honestly have no way to gauge the readership of Harvard Extended, other than comments, emails, and the four other RSS subscribers through Bloglines. This Harvard Extended fan is another history concentrator in the ALM program, and said a colleague of his at the Harvard Business School had shown him the blog. He especially liked the entry about President Summers' 8,500-word letter to the Harvard Community that neglected to mention the Harvard Extension School. It was a nice ego boost, and also encouragement for me to keep blogging about Extension-related issues.

The New York Times' front page Extension School article

I am happy yet apprehensive about the front-page coverage of the Harvard Extension School in today's New York Times. The article is great publicity for the Extension School and is sure to boost applications, but it may have some negative repurcussions as well.

The article by Pam Belluck mostly explores the ALB (undergraduate) program at the Extension School, and how some students use it as an alternative to a Harvard College degree. It stresses some positive attributes about the ALB program:

Students have access to Harvard faculty, even Nobel laureates like Roy J. Glauber, a physicist who has taught extension classes. At least 52 of the 128 credits required for the extension bachelors degree must come from courses taught by Harvard instructors. And some courses are virtually identical to those at Harvard College, professors say.

But the article also gets into the perception issue -- what does "Harvard Extension School" mean to other members of the Harvard community, outsiders, and potential recruiters?

Memorial Hall

Of course, an ALB isn't the same as a Harvard College degree (AB). The students who join the ALB program don't go through the same rigorous application process as AB candidates. Furthermore, the ALB academic requirements, while challenging, aren't as tough as Harvard College academic assignments and expectations, even though some Harvard College faculty are teaching Extension students as well.

The article is right in that some ALB students are clearly interested in the Harvard name appearing on their resumes, perhaps more than what the program itself has to offer in terms of a very high-quality education taught by Harvard faculty. I hate to say it, but there are a handful of ALM candidates (Harvard Extension School's graduate degree program) who also have motives for attending which have more to do with the Harvard name than a Harvard education. And some are not as committed as I would hope. One fellow graduate student in my Chinese Emigration in Modern Times class in the Spring asked me what other classes were good for getting an "easy A" -- this student's interest seemed to be more attuned toward finding easy teachers or coursework, rather than classes which fit his academic interests or potential ALM thesis topic.

How will The New York Times' Extension School article change opinions?

I think the New York Times article will reinforce the idea among the rest of the Harvard community that Extension School students are sneaking through Harvard's back door, aren't worthy of being Harvard students, or are not motivated by honest academic goals. This is not good for the majority of Extension School students who take their Harvard studies very seriously. I'll keep an eye peeled for online reaction in this regard -- and feel free to comment below if you want to add your two cents.

Update:

The blog reaction has started. Here's a sample of what I've seen so far:

"How to Debase your Brand, and How to Extend It"

... the University has taken things a step too far, marketing the courses as the Harvard experience, and even going so far as to offer a BA degree from the Extension School. Sure enough, people are obtaining their BAs, which they list as being from Harvard University, at a cost far less than they would pay at Harvard College, and with no screening by Admissions. Harvard has spent over 350 years building its brand, and now it has proceeded to dull it through this short-sighted move.

"Veritasesque"

There are lots of interesting questions that might have been asked. Do more than a tiny fraction of HES students really believe that they'll be able to pass themselves off as "regular" Harvard alums when they graduate? If so, is Harvard University nodding and winking at them in order to keep the pure gravy of money and public relations that is the Extension School flowing? What's the difference, other than in name recognition, between HES and nearby Bunker Hill Community College? Between HES and some online curriculum from the University of Phoenix? Between HES and a diploma mill?

Related Links:

Harvard Extended Interview Series: An ALM management concentrator (Note: This interview is with the HES graduate student who left this comment, below)

Great mystery of the Maya, parallels with China

An excerpt of an article by Thomas H. Maugh II, staff writer of the Los Angeles Times:

Archeologists excavating the ruined Guatemalan city of Cancuen have stumbled across the remains of what they believe is one of the pivotal events in the collapse of the Maya civilization — the desperate defense of the once-great trading center and the ritual execution of at least 45 members of its royal court. ... "This was a critical historical moment, like the assassination of [Austrian] Archduke [Franz] Ferdinand [which triggered] World War I," said archeologist Arthur A. Demarest of Vanderbilt University, whose team discovered the charnel house this summer. "It set off the domino of Classic Maya collapse."

Stories like this are what make the study of history so exciting. Why the Maya faded from the scene around 800 AD has been an enduring historical mystery. At one of my Harvard Extension School history classes (HIST E-10b/W World History II: The Rise of the East, Spring 2004, taught by Professor Ostrowski) this issue provided fodder for a few lectures, and discussion of what may have precipitated the decline of the Maya. As I recall, two hypotheses that had been put forward were the Maya declined because of disease, or disillusionment with the priest caste and local religious beliefs after a series of incorrect predictions. While these two hypotheses have not been disproved, the new archeological evidence and the hypotheses that have sprung from it are certainly very compelling.

There are also some interesting parallels with Chinese dynastic history -- how many times was the capital city of the ruling emperor besieged and captured, and his entire family executed? Of course, in China a new dynasty was usually proclaimed, whereas after the Mayan family was wiped out, it's not clear if there was an attempt to proclaim a new ruler to fill the power vacuum.

Harvard graduate & blogger outed

This is interesting -- the author of "Underneath Their Robes," a gossipy blog about the judiciary, has been outed as a Harvard College grad who is working as a federal prosecutor in Newark, reports the New York Times.

The blog, which was described as "a dishy hybrid of People magazine and The Harvard Law Review," was supposedly written by an anonymous female observer/admirer who called herself "Article III Groupie". But The New Yorker magazine found that the blogger is actually David Lat, a graduate of Harvard College and the Yale Law School, says the Times.

I think anonymity is a great thing for some bloggers, but in this case it was not only awkward (now that the secret is out, as was bound to happen) but potentially damaging to cases Lat worked on, if some of his alter ego comments were found to have created a conflict of interest or misconduct with judges he talked about.

"Underneath Their Robes," incidentally, has been taken down since the expose.

My parents meet the father of the 2008 Olympic mascots, and other Beijing impressions

My parents just got back from a business trip to Beijing. They have been to China before, but it was interesting to hear of their experience in the city, and how much it has changed since I was there in the early 1990s.

Development, haze, traffic -- these things have been noted by others and I see no reason to repeat it here. But I will talk about a few observations and encounters they had in the Chinese capital:

Han Meilin: My mother is an artist, and through a contact in China, met Han Meilin (韩美林) at his five-story studio in Beijing last week. This man is an incredibly prolific artist, with an interesting history. Han suffered greatly in the past -- he was tortured during the Cultural Revolution -- he showed my parents the scars where his tendons had been cut, rendering his thumbs inoperable (later repaired with surgery). Now, he is the artist China's public and corporate leaders turn to. He designed the phoenix logo that appears on the tail of Air China aircraft, and, as we will soon see, Olympic-related art for the all-important 2008 activities in Beijing.

Han practices in multiple mediums, ranging from traditional calligraphy to worked metal sculpture. Samples of his painting, calligraphy, and sculpture are here. Han and his crew even make incredibly ornate furniture. And they also designed the cartoonish Olympic mascots for the 2008 games in Beijing.

Their names are Bei Bei, Jing Jing, Huan Huan, Ying Ying, Ni Ni, which, if you remove the duplicate syllables, is a homonym for "Beijing Welcomes You" (北京歡迎您). Han mentioned to my mother that he was working on this project at the time of their visit, and said there were two potential sets of designs, but absolutely would not show them to her, as the unveiling was just a few days away. There apparently has been some controversy about them, as noted here. But what was so incredible to me was the fact that Han can shift from traditional Chinese art to modern sculpture to pop culture so easily. I remarked to my wife that it was as if Rembrant started dabbling in Cubism, and then designed Hello Kitty on commission. He gave a signed book of his work to my parents; his pottery glazes, calligraphy, and certain sculpture are absolutely incredible. I don't think I'll be buying commemorative Olympic dolls, however.

Tiananmen protest: My parents experienced a weird, one-man demonstration in Tiananmen last week. They were there with a small group of Americans and a tour guide when a "well-dressed, handsome man" started shouting something about 10 feet away. Immediately a plainclothes security officer tried to get him to shut up, but he wouldn't. Six more men came over and hustled him away. The tour guide was freaked out by this, and when asked by the Americans, said the protester had been shouting something like "Down with Communism." No way to verify the exact words, or if the man had deliberately made his protest while foreigners were nearby.

Beijing Opera: One night, my parents' hosts took them to see Beijing Opera. The production was very fine, and in a giant hall that could hold many hundreds of people. But only 20 people were there, including my parents. Most of the Chinese were bored, said my parents. It doesn't surprise me -- when I lived in Taiwan, the only people I ever saw watching Taiwanese opera or even live Taiwanese opera puppets (布袋戲) were people over the age of 60. My father-in-law loves Beijing and Sichuan opera, but he is 80 years old, and was schooled in the traditional way (Chinese classics) and brought up on traditional opera.

Meanwhile, Pavarotti is coming to China at the end of this year, and I've heard the Beijing show is sold out. I doubt a reverse situation will occur in the West; traditional Chinese opera is, frankly, very screechy and hard to appreciate musically.

Reflection on 100 posts & status of my thesis

Here I am, writing the 100th post for this blog, which I started back in May to get myself cracking on my Harvard Extension School thesis. In the intervening months I noted the Harvard Extended blog had developed some corollary missions related to the nature of my research on Chinese media and history.

Some other highlight posts (in my view) of the 100 made so far include:

* Fighting thesis procrastination

* Thesis blues

* American journalists in foreign countries

* Xinhua finally becoming a "world news agency"?

* Learning about history through movies

* Expert analysis of PRC foreign policy, and the missing ingredient: mass media

* The British Empire in Colour

* Your ridiculous clamour for "human rights" is nothing but a shrill cry!

* Great quotes about journalism in China

* Precis for Porter's Reporting the News from China (warning: long!)

* Patterns of upheaval in modern Chinese history

* A rock and roll past in Taiwan

* ALM thesis writers' meeting/Revisiting Vietnam?

* The myth of the China market becoming reality?

* Published in the South China Morning Post

* Vietnam and Iraq: promoting democracy, and forgetting about it

* Part-time vs. Full-time, Online, and my Harvard whine

* Thesis proposal: Start, write, throw away, rewrite

The above posts run the gamut, but they shouldn't detract from the primary purpose of the Harvard Extended blog: to promote progress on my thesis. And this is where I stand with my thesis as of now:

I have submitted part 2 of my proposal (the key section which outlines the problem, my proposed hypotheses, and my proposed research methodology) to Professor Ostrowski, the Extension School faculty member (and ALM research advisor) who helps history and government concentrators refine their proposals into a thesis idea which other Harvard faculty (the thesis directors) can hopefully help shepherd to completion.

I submitted the proposal to Professor Ostrowski one month ago, and still haven't heard back from him. That's not unusual, proclaims the Harvard Extension School's Guide to the ALM Thesis: during peak periods, research advisors sometimes work on 75 proposals at once, and it takes time for them to review draft proposals. If I don't hear from him within the next week, I'm attending the ALM Thesis Writers' meeting on Nov. 21, which Professor Ostrowski leads, and will ask him how long he expects to take.

In the meantime, I haven't been sitting on my duff. I am preparing another precis on a book edited by David Lampton, Chinese Foreign Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978-2000. I've prepared probably a dozen full-length preces (see example here). on books and dissertations related to China, Chinese history, and Chinese media in the past two years; these will be invaluable when I compose the other parts of the thesis proposal and start work on the actual thesis.

Summers' letter to the Harvard community -- guess what's missing?

If you have an FAS email account, you've received a message from Harvard's president Lawrence H. Summers to read his "Letter to the Harvard Community."

It's an interesting document, and touches upon some of the accomplishments and developments at Harvard in the past year or so, and plans for the future. Here's a summary of the University-related issues discussed in the letter:

* attracting the strongest students to all parts of Harvard;
* strengthening our faculty and its diversity at all levels;
* providing the best educational experience for students;
* expanding our efforts in the sciences;
* enhancing our support for the humanities and the arts;
* extending the University's international role;
* advancing Allston planning;
* identifying resource needs; and
* completing important leadership transitions.

It takes more than 8,500 words to detail all of these developments, or the equivalent of 19 single-spaced pages.

Yet even though so much effort is spent describing all of the accomplishments at various tubs, and plans for the future, guess which school at Harvard isn't even mentioned in the 8,500-word letter? That's right, the Harvard Extension School!

FAS is mentioned numerous times, as well as the other big tubs -- Business, Law, Medical. We hear about curriculum changes at the Education School and Kennedy School, and even plans for Divinity and Dental.

But the Extension School and Division of Continuing Education are not mentioned a single time. There are thousands of Extension students from the United States and other countries in undergraduate and graduate degree programs. The school is an important community resource. There are Extension programs that address the initiatives listed above, such as the push in sciences and technology. Yet the school doesn't even get a ten-word bullet point, or acknowledgement?

I am disappointed in President Summers' lapse -- it not only reflects a lack of concern for what happens at the Extension School, but also how the school fits into the Harvard community and can help the University achieve its goals.

If you'd like to email President Summers about this letter, his office has set up a special email account: community_letter@harvard.edu

Extension School certificate vs. degree programs

A student who is considering the Certificate in Management program emailed me a good question:

"I've noticed that the difference between a certificate and a degree program at [the Harvard Extension School] is about 2 classes and a thesis. Is there any way that I can go for the ALM while emphasizing the better part of my classes in business subjects?"

Unfortunately, I had to tell the student that the answer is no, according to my understanding of the program. There are 19 fields of study for the ALM listed here, but none of them are business focused. This student could do a government concentration, and try to take as many government classes as possible that touch on economics -- trade, development, finance, policy. But the finance courses in the EXT catalogue don't count as in-field classes toward the government ALM requirement, only as electives, which can be no more than two classes. The finance classes are really geared toward people doing the Certificate in Management program, as far as I can tell. It is probably worth asking someone in the ALM program, however. I have seen Government and History theses related to business issues, and the in-field coursework of the people who wrote them was probably more economy- and business-focussed than my own coursework thus far.

Additionally, there is the ALM thesis requirement to consider. It's not just like taking another class, or simply writing a big term paper. It is a very time-consuming and research-intensive process. I've been conducting research and working on my thesis proposal for six months, and still have at least one year to go before I complete my thesis.

One other thing that I should mention to people considering the certificate programs at the Extension School is that several of them do have closely related masters programs -- the Certificate in Environmental Management and the Master of Liberal Arts in Environmental Management, and the Certificate in Publishing and Communications and the Master of Liberal Arts in Journalism. Of course, there are some significant differences between a certificate program and a masters program, most notably the thesis/masters project, proseminar requirement, and additional coursework. Contact the Extension School if you are interested in comparing the various certificate and degree programs.

Chinese journalism and cash for coverage

I tried to post the following comment to Imagethief's blog post about Chinese journalists accepting cash for coverage, but it didn't show up, so I am posting it here as well:

Imagethief is touching upon issues that journalists in many countries encounter. In the United States media ethics are taken very seriously, and reporters and editors who get too cozy with PR folks or colleagues who sell advertising are viewed with suspicion by other journalists. There is, in fact, a term for writers that are viewed to be in the pockets of others, and/or aren't good journalists: "Hacks." The dim view of hacks is the result of numerous factors, ranging from our "free press" system, to historical encounters with Yellow Journalism and McCarthyism, to Internet journalism sites (Romenesko et al) where media scandals, no matter how minor, are rapidly disseminated to thousands of other American journalists.

China also has a long media history, but it has been influenced by a different set of factors. The press is officially subservient to the state and society, and can only play a limited watchdog role. From the early 1950s to the early 1980s it was devoid of any commercial influence. Now commercial- and circulation-supported news has come back with a vengeance, and Chinese journalists are dealing with new pressures. They may not see any problem with getting too close to PR flacks -- guanxi plays a huge role in Chinese society, and I further believe a widespread awareness of journalism ethics in China has been stunted by the state, which doesn't want a watchdog press.

I also would hypothesize that the hong bao trend in Chinese media that Imagethief and others have described may have migrated from Taiwan. I worked in the Taiwanese media in the mid 1990s, first as a television newswriter and later as a newspaper reporter and editor, and press conferences sponsored by large companies sometimes distributed hong bao with cash or department store gift certificates inside (many pressers were held at department stores). The first time I saw this, I questioned one of my Taiwanese colleagues, a television reporter, about the practice. He didn't seem surprised, said it was common, and gladly pocketed the cash (typically a few thousand $NT, or about US$60-$90). He was surprised that I didn't do the same. His reports, incidentally, were largely "fluff pieces," and I hear now he's a spokesman for a major Taiwanese political party. I know Taiwanese PR folks and journalists have crossed over to China to start businesses, and I wouldn't be surprised if they introduced their own media practices to Chinese colleagues.

I am curious if anyone who has worked in Hong Kong media has similar experiences.