Before applying for special student or visiting fellow status, scholars should select one department to affiliate with based on their academic interests. While applicants seeking more interdisciplinary opportunities may choose the General Studies Program, GSAS reserves the right to send an application to a specific admissions committee if a candidate’s experience and interests are more suited to a particular department.
- African and African American Studies
- Anthropology
- Astronomy
- Biological Sciences in Public Health
- Biophysics
- Biostatistics
- Business Administration*†
- Business Economics*†
- Celtic Languages and Literatures
- Chemistry and Chemical Biology
- The Classics
- Comparative Literature
- Division of Medical Sciences*
- School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
- Earth and Planetary Sciences
- East Asian Languages and Civilizations
- Economics*
- English
- Film and Visual Studies
- Germanic Languages and Literatures
- Government‡
- Health Policy†
- History
- History of Art and Architecture
- History of Science*§
- Human Evolutionary Biology
- Linguistics
- Mathematics
- Middle Eastern Studies§
- Molecular and Cellular Biology*
- Music
- Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
- Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
- Organizational Behavior*†
- Philosophy†
- Physics
- Psychology
- Public Policy*†‡
- Religion
- Romance Languages and Literatures
- Slavic Languages and Literatures
- Sociology*
- South Asian Studies
- Statistics
- Systems, Synthetic, and Quantitative Biology
- Women, Gender, and Sexuality†
* Applicants must have the confirmed support of at least one faculty member to be considered.
† Accepts applications for visiting fellow status only.
‡The Department of Government and the committees on Public Policy do not permit affiliation as a special student if you plan to apply for PhD study within 18 months.
§ Only special student applications are considered; research students should inquire directly with the department.
Course Selection
To review the courses offered during a particular term, access the Public Course Catalog. Courses marked with an asterisk require instructor approval before you can register and those in brackets are not offered during the current term, but may be offered in the future. Special students are restricted from participating in a select group of departmental offerings. Please note, course instructors reserve the right to make enrollment adjustments during the Add/Drop period, should they determine a student is not academically qualified.
Special students may audit coursework upon securing the approval of the course instructor, who determines the level of participation. A grade is not received for the course, but the student’s transcript will reference “TIME-A.” Full tuition is charged for an officially audited course.
Special students may also participate in a supervised independent research project instead of a half-course, after securing approval from a faculty member. While a grade is not received for the course, the student’s transcript will reference “TIME-C.” Full tuition is charged.
CROSS REGISTRATION
Special students may enroll in a limited number of courses (not more than half of one’s total program per term) in other Harvard faculties or cooperating schools. Learn more by reviewing Harvard’s cross-registration procedures. Enrollment cannot be guaranteed in advance of registration.
