FALSE: Harvard lists hardest courses in the world

At a glance:

• Claim: Harvard University released a list of the 55 most difficult courses in the world.
• Rating: FALSE
• The facts: Harvard University did not release the list. The original source was also only referring to the “most difficult majors in America.”
• Why we fact checked this: A post containing the claim was flagged by Facebook’s monitoring tool. It had over 158,000 shares.

Complete details:

Posts on social media showed a screenshot of a list of the 55 “most difficult courses in the world,” with Harvard University credited as its source.

This claim is false.

A reverse image search showed that the list did not come from Harvard University but from youth news site The Tab, which conducted research on the topic in 2017. Moreover, The Tab ranked only the “most difficult majors in America” – not in the world as the social media posts claimed.

The Tab’s methodology included a weighted analysis of self-reported results from surveys conducted by the publication itself and the National Survey of Student Engagement.

“The Tab used data on the number of hours students spend studying, all-nighters pulled, hours napped, GPA, and how often students said they feel stressed to compile a ranking of 55 majors,” said The Tab’s in-house data expert Matt Pencer. 

The Tab is published by Tab Media Ltd, which was launched at the University of Cambridge in 2009. It has since expanded to over 80 universities in the United Kingdom and the US.

Meanwhile, what Harvard University has so far released is a list of the hardest courses at Harvard.

A Facebook post containing this claim had over 158,000 shares, 26,000 reactions, and 13,000 comments as of writing. It was posted on May 30 and has continued to be shared as recently as October 24. Facebook’s monitoring tool called Claim Check also flagged the post for fact checkers to verify. 

The claim also circulated on other social media platforms aside from Facebook. Rappler found a tweet that contained the same claim, which had over 2,600 likes, 2,800 retweets, and 1,600 replies. – Pauline Macaraeg/Rappler.com

Keep us aware of suspicious Facebook pages, groups, accounts, websites, articles, or photos in your network by contacting us at factcheck@rappler.com. Let us battle disinformation one Fact Check at a time.