Physed14

I'd be interested to know if they will continue with some online component moving forward in the future. COVID pushed things in this direction, I wonder if it opened a box that will be hard for universities like Harvard to close again. Given what seems like an unprecedented number of people willing to do (and pay) for a Harvard degree online, I wonder what will happen moving forward. I know for me, my Harvard dream dies here without distance learning as leaving my job mid-career to move across the world to Cambridge for a year won't ever be an option (as lovely as it would be)

I'm not sure if it is that they are not all that inclusive as much as it is they had a higher number of amazing summer applicants than expected and a lower number of slots to fill than expected. I bet if all of us that got rejected in this summer round were to apply again during the regular admission cycle next year, we'd see a much higher acceptance rate from the same pool of people

Here's my guess...they were anticipating a large number of people that were already admitted to decide not to come once they announced that they would be online, so they planned for this summer round to fill those gaps. The summer application was due on July 13. But the decision from those already admitted for next year to tell Harvard whether they were coming or not online was July 15. I think more people decided to stay with the program than perhaps they thought would. I'm sure HGSE's decision not to offer deferments also played into that. Thus ending up with a much smaller amount of slots than perhaps they thought they would have when they decided to move online. Just my thinking on it

No for me. Congrats to those who did make it! I'm sure it was a very very limited amount of slots to fill

Admission office closes at 4pm and they are closed all day Monday. It's going to be a dump and run lol. And I'm sure it's a pre-programmed time to drop already in the system

I thought HGSE only did interviews for the doctoral candidates and not M.ed candidates (even pre-covid).

Who knows really. Like was mentioned before, it might help, it might not. So much is unknown about all this from our end. I just imagine that the faculty right now is working furiously to convert their courses to the new online format so that their involvement in this process would probably be extremely limited. But again, all this is just guessing on my part. It's a crazy undertaking for Harvard to move entirely online, a crazy undertaking for all of us to turn around an application so fast, and crazy for the admissions team to get through all of it so fast. Just crazy times all around. I'm buckling up and going along for the ride, wherever it may or may not lead me.

Does said faculty member know you are applying? Did you use them as a reference? I doubt highly that the faculty is involved in this process. Perhaps the dean of the program. Maybe a small committee for each program. I find, in my experience in the school I work for, it would be very rare for someone to advocate unsolicited. Even if asked to do so by the candidate, a lot of people don't like to mix their professional work in such a way that involves whom a school admits. If you asked for a formal recommendation from the person, I think that would be different. Otherwise, I think it would be doubtful they would get involved, but I'm just assuming here.

Honestly, with the tight turn around and what I'm guessing was a high number of applicants wanting this late opportunity, I'd be surprised if they even read past the opening paragraph on a lot of applications. I just keep imagining applications going into very quick piles-hard yes, no, maybes and then even the yes and maybes there isn't a lot of time to look at things in-depth. I've read in the past that in normal times, most college admissions spend like 12-15 minutes reviewing an application. With a two week turnaround time and potentially thousands of apps to comb through, it could be even less. So I think decisions are going to be quite unpredictable as a result (coupled with we have no idea how many slots they are trying to fill or how many applicants there are for this summer cycle).

This was a concern of mine as well when I saw there were some synchronous aspects to the classes, as I'm six time zones behind the East Coast and I work. They did say they would offer multiple options for the synchronous sections, though I'm still afraid that might mean in the middle of the night might be the only option that works for me in my time zone in my schedule. Evening would be best for me, but evening here is the middle of the night there. There are so many aspects to all this I've had to consider, but none of it matters until I see the decision on acceptance so...first thing's first. If I get in, then it's on to financials and schedule and all that.

I have my Masters in Kinesiology and have applied for the Mind, Brain, and Education program. I've been an elementary teacher for 14 years and decided this was a unique opportunity to at least apply to this wonderful program (I've always watched the MBE program with great interest from afar) since moving around the world for a one-year program while mid-career was never going to be an option. Honestly, even if I got in I'm not sure it would be any more viable for me -- first financially, but also because teaching this school year will likely be one of the more challenging ones of my career as it is with COVID restrictions and such. I guess I figured it's going to be hard anyway, might as well just pile it on!