Can anyone who has done the Harvard Health Careers program for record enhancement purposes share their experience? I've done science all my life and am currently in my final year of a science major at a Canadian University. My GPA is 3.3 and I'm looking into post bac courses in the US. I haven't taken my MCAT yet, so my options are limited.
It might be relevant that Harvard Extension School
doesn't participate at all in the U.S. student visa program (Form I-20, F-1 visa). Harvard Summer School
does participate, but only for Harvard Summer School's term. You can take a maximum of 8 semester hour credits during Summer School.
International students at HES during the regular academic year have all obtained status to live in the U.S. in some other way, typically as immigrants with a Green Card.
Canadian citizens – with Canadian passports, not permanent residents – can generally enter the U.S. to visit visa-free. This is the status Canadian "snowbirds" use to winter in Florida or the Sunbelt. Two major limitations on this visa-free status are that the traveller can't work, and that they can't stay for more than 183 days (6 months) within a 12-month period, I think. Each full semester at HES, Fall and Spring, is 16 weeks start to end, totalling about 224 days.
I guess theoretically you could travel back to Canada repeatedly during each term to chip away at the total number of days in your stay. This would get expensive. You should expect scrutiny and be ready for problems at the border. You should also expect that the HCP might not admit a student with such limited status in the U.S. You can take HES courses without admission to the HCP.
I'm not a lawyer or an expert in these issues, just trying to share my limited understanding.
A limited number of upper-level and graduate HES (and HSS) biology courses, electives and not core med school prerequisites, are offered online.
