~thethingwithfeathers

I've been accepted to HGSE's Teacher Education Program (TEP), which offers an English concentration and certification. Here are links to the program website (http://www.gse.harvard.edu/academics/masters/tep/description/index.html ) and the courses offered (http://www.gse.harvard.edu/academics/masters/tep/curriculum/courses.html ). The TEP is geared specifically toward preparing teachers for urban education, but if you read the descriptions of the classes, pretty much everything covered is transferable to teaching in any environment. In addition to general pedagogy courses, it offers a "Teaching English" class. Because it is a small program (about 15-20 in English education each year; around 40 in the entire TEP), HGSE can't offer all the subject-specific pedagogy classes that TC does ("Teaching Shakespeare," "Teaching Poetry," etc.), which sound great. However, the TEP does address all those topics within the "Teaching English" class, albeit not in such great depth. Then there are three electives: one within your content area, one TEP elective, and one completely free choice. I'd hopefully be taking two English classes at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and, for my TEP elective, a class on adolescent literature (with a supplementary course on adolescent literacy). Both TC and HGSE seem to offer great programs with very different strengths. Now if only one of them would be as generous as BU...

I'm in a similar position, too - deciding between secondary English education programs at HGSE and TC. Now BU has offered me a scholarship and thrown everything up in the air again, but before that I had pretty much decided on HGSE. In addition to the smaller size of the program, the number of electives I'd get to take in the TEP at Harvard really appealed to me; I would actually be able to take more English classes than at TC. What truly made the difference, though, was my email correspondence with the two programs. Both answered my queries promptly, but while TC either gave me one-line responses to my questions or told me to contact other departments, HGSE responded thoughtfully, thoroughly, and warmly. The woman I had initially emailed not only answered each of my questions in depth, but also forwarded my email to someone else whom she thought could provide a different perspective. Their answered seemed honest and reassured me about some of my concerns about the program. I hope you enjoy your visits to both schools and figure out which one feels right to you. Environment and personal preference do make a big difference; my sense that I'd be happier in Cambridge than in NYC is definitely influencing my decision. Good luck! Either way, I think you can't really go wrong.

I spoke on the phone with someone at TC after the first round of acceptances to my program appeared on the results page here. What they told me was that some departments release their decisions "in batches" - so even if the program you're applying to has made some decisions, they may not have looked at your application yet. I have no idea how they determine whose application is in which batch - whether they base it on the order the applications are received or how good the applications are or something else entirely - but I wasn't notified in the first round and things have worked out well for me. Good luck!