What if I want to take some courses, but don't want a degree?

The only way to take Harvard Arts and Sciences courses, unless you are enrolled in another Harvard graduate program or MIT, is to be admitted as a Special Student, which allows you to take between one and four courses a semester. Foreign nationals have to take a full-time load in order to get a student visa. Students are issued a transcript, but no degree or certificate, for their work in the Special Student program.

Admitted applicants should be aware that the Department does not have the resources to provide the same support, academic and otherwise, to Special Students as it does to Ph.D. students. Special Students are not assigned advisers, office space, research space, research funds, financial aid, library keys, or computer lab accounts. They are restricted from taking the Department's proseminar (PSY 2010), and other courses at the discretion of the instructor. Admission to independent reading and research (PSY 3010) courses under the supervision of a faculty member is also at the discretion of the faculty member, and is in no way guaranteed or even likely.

Many Special Students hope eventually to enroll in a psychology graduate program; some plan to apply to Harvard's Ph.D. program. However, applicants should consider the Special Student year an opportunity to take courses, rather than a way to get an early start on the Ph.D. program. While Special Students are certainly eligible to apply, potential applicants should be aware that admission as a Special Student in no way guarantees, or necessarily enhances, one's chances of being admitted to the Ph.D. program. Should a Special Student later be admitted to the doctoral program, academic and financial credit would be given for appropriate graduate-level courses taken during the Special Student term(s).