Harvard today

Today Harvard is composed of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, including Harvard College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the Division of Continuing Education.

The University has a regular enrollment of 17,000, plus some 30,000 other students who take credit courses, non-credit courses, and seminars.

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History of Harvard University

A Brief History

When you attend Harvard College, you become a part of the rich, storied history of the nation’s oldest institutions of higher learning. Founded in 1636, Harvard has undergone countless changes over the centuries, yet has always maintained its core as a haven for the world’s most ambitious scholars.

Academics

Harvard was founded in 1636 and named for its first donor, the Reverend John Harvard. It was granted a charter by the Colony of Massachusetts in 1650, under whose authority the University of today still operates.

For its first 200 years Harvard College followed a curriculum consistent with the instructional style of the period. It emphasized rhetorical principles, rote learning, and constant drilling. Harvard’s then-small faculty was distinguished from the beginning. John Winthrop (A.B. 1732), who held the Hollis Professorship and taught mathematics and natural philosophy from 1738 to 1779, was one of America’s greatest men of science in the Colonial era.

Initially established to provide a learned ministry to the colonies, Harvard only later created graduate programs. The first was medical studies in 1782, followed by law and divinity in 1816 and 1817, respectively.

Under the presidency of Charles William Eliot (1869–1909), the number and variety of classes multiplied, the lecture system supplanted recitation, and students were permitted a free choice of courses.

Eliot’s successor, A. Lawrence Lowell, believed there was “too much teaching and too little studying” in Harvard College. Accordingly, throughout his presidency (1909–1933), Lowell emphasized scholarship and honors work, eventually introducing the system of “concentration and distribution,” together with general examinations and tutorials, which continues essentially unchanged today.

James Bryant Conant (1933-1953) further emphasized the need for breadth by introducing the first General Education curriculum through his 1945 report General Education in a Free Society, known as the “Red Book.”

When dissatisfaction grew over the General Education program in the 1970s, President Derek Curtis Bok (1971–1991) oversaw its replacement by the Core Curriculum. While reaffirming the principle that every Harvard undergraduate should be broadly educated, the Core emphasized ways of knowing, allowing for students to choose from a range of courses in seven areas. .

In 2006, Harvard conducted a review of undergraduate education, which led to a new focus on study abroad, the creation of secondary fields, and the new Program in General Education, which replaced the Core Curriculum in 2013. The new approach to General Education offers courses that connect in explicit ways what students are learning in the classroom to the lives they will lead beyond college.

Buildings

Many of Harvard’s historic buildings, several of which date back to the 18th century, still stand today. Massachusetts Hall (1720), Wadsworth House (1726), and Holden Chapel (1744) are the earliest. Hollis Hall has been a dormitory since it was built in 1763.

Although nothing remains of the University’s original 17th-century buildings, brass markers in the middle of Massachusetts Avenue now indicate where the Goffe and Peyntree Houses once stood.

Harvard Hall (1766) stands on the site of a 17th-century building of the same name. It burned down one wintry night in 1764, destroying the 5,000-volume college library, then the largest in North America.

Old Stoughton College suffered so much damage from occupation by Continental troops during the Revolution that it had to be torn down in 1781. A new Stoughton Hall (1805), Holworthy Hall (1812), and University Hall (1815) now form the outline of the original Yard.

The College began taking on the aspect of a true university in the 19th century, when a library building (1841), an observatory (1846), a scientific school (1847), a chemistry laboratory (1857), and a natural history museum (1860) were built.

Early in the 20th century the professional schools each acquired a new building: Medicine in 1906, Law in 1907, and Business Administration in 1926. The great central library building, named for Harry Elkins Widener, who perished on the Titanic, dates from 1915. The present Fogg Museum dates from 1927, and the Mallinckrodt chemical laboratory from 1929.

During the presidency of Nathan Marsh Pusey (1953–1971), government subsidy for science enabled the building and renovating of major facilities in the areas of medicine, public health, and the basic and applied sciences.

Diversity and accessibility

The 20th century saw substantial efforts to open Harvard’s doors to an increasingly broad range of students. President Pusey led fundraising campaigns that increased student financial aid, and his successor, Derek Curtis Bok, conducted a capital campaign that included a $350 million effort to support policies that encouraged the recruitment and appointment of outstanding women and minority scholars to permanent faculty positions.

Neil L. Rudenstine, Harvard’s 26th president (1991–2001), made substantial efforts to keep Harvard’s doors open to outstanding students from across the economic spectrum. Rudenstine is credited, among other things, with guiding the creation of the new Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. He strongly advocated the educational importance of student diversity and helped raise a record $2.6 billion for student financial aid, professorships, building renovation, and educational and research programs.

In July 2001, Lawrence H. Summers (PhD 1982) became Harvard’s 27th president. In addition to a focus on renewing the undergraduate experience, Summers led efforts to reach out to many more undergraduates from low-income families.

Drew Gilpin Faust took office as Harvard’s 28th president on July 1, 2007. Previously, Faust served as founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, where she guided the transformation of Radcliffe from a college into a wide-ranging institute for advanced study.

Under her leadership, Radcliffe emerged as one of the nation’s foremost centers of scholarly and creative enterprise.

Radcliffe

Radcliffe College was founded in 1879 “to furnish instruction and the opportunities of collegiate life to women and to promote their higher education.” From 1879 to 1943, Harvard professors repeated to Radcliffe students the lectures they gave at Harvard.

In 1946, the majority of Harvard courses were made coeducational.

Integration quickened in the 1960s. Harvard degrees were awarded to Radcliffe students for the first time in 1963, and in the same year women were admitted to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In 1967, the doors of Lamont Library were opened to women.

President Derek Bok took the most dramatic initial steps in integration. In 1975, the two Colleges combined admissions offices, and an equal access admissions policy was adopted.

In 1977, Harvard assumed all responsibility for undergraduate education of women. Radcliffe then devoted increasing attention to cultivation and development of research and postgraduate programs.

On September 14, 1999, the governing bodies of Harvard and Radcliffe completed the merger of the two institutions. Harvard College then created the Ann Radcliffe Trust, “a set of programs for Harvard undergraduates that seeks to raise the awareness of women and women’s issues at Harvard.”

In fall 2006, the Harvard College Women’s Center opened in Harvard Yard. The Center absorbed the Ann Radcliffe Trust and continues outreach work on behalf of undergraduate women. The merger also established the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, which offers non-degree instruction and executive education programs.

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Mission & Vision Harvard University

Mission

The mission of Harvard College is to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society. We do this through our commitment to the trans-formative power of a liberal arts and sciences education.

Beginning in the classroom with exposure to new ideas, new ways of understanding, and new ways of knowing, students embark on a journey of intellectual transformation.  Through a diverse living environment, where students live with people who are studying different topics, who come from different walks of life and have evolving identities, intellectual transformation is deepened and conditions for social transformation are created.  From this we hope that students will begin to fashion their lives by gaining a sense of what they want to do with their gifts and talents, assessing their values and interests, and learning how they can best serve the world.

Vision

Harvard College will set the standard for residential liberal arts and sciences education in the twenty-first century. We are committed to creating and sustaining the conditions that enable all Harvard College students to experience an unparalleled educational journey that is intellectually, socially, and personally trans-formative. 

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How to Apply Harvard College

Let us Help you Apply

Each applicant to Harvard College is considered with great care. While there is no formula for gaining admission, we hope you will explore the information in this section to understand what we look for in our holistic admissions process.

When to Apply

Early Action applicants apply by the November 1 deadline and hear from us by December 15. If you apply to Harvard under our Early Action program, you may also apply at the same time to any public college/university or to foreign universities but you are restricted from applying to other private universities’ Early Action and Early Decision programs.  

Our application timeline

What We Look For

We seek promising students who will contribute to the Harvard community during their college years, and to society throughout their lives.

While academic accomplishment is important, the Admissions Committee considers many other factors—strong personal qualities, special talents or excellences of all kinds, perspectives formed by unusual personal circumstances, and the ability to take advantage of available resources and opportunities.

Read more about our admissions process

Parts of the Application

We outline everything you need to apply to Harvard and describe each component of your application. 

Freshman application requirements

Transfer application requirements

Visiting Undergraduate Student requirements

International student information

When to Apply

Keep your application on track with our application timeline. 

Key Dates

November 1	Early Action deadline
November 1	Early Financial Aid Application deadline
Mid-December	Early Action decisions released
January 1	Regular Decision deadline
March 1	Financial Aid Application deadline
Late March	Decision letters mailed
May 1	Reply date for Admitted Students

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University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)

(Los Angeles, CA, USA)

10th in U.S.

With over 72,000 applications for the fall of 2012 alone, UCLA receives more applications than any other school in America. This is all the more impressive when one considers the institution was only founded in 1919 as a two-year, undergraduate teacher-training program.

Today, the university can claim 13 Nobel Laureates, 12 Rhodes Scholars, 12 MacArthur Fellows, 10 National Medal of Science winners, three Pulitzer Prize winners, and a Fields Medalist.

UCLA has also produced numerous athletic achievements, with over 111 NCAA championships, 110 professional athletes, dominance over the No. 1 pick in the major league drafts, and 250 Olympic medals.

With a roughly $3 billion endowment and a budget exceeding $4.5 billion, UCLA has recovered rapidly from the 2008 financial crisis. Its substantial research funds are a part of the reason why over 100 companies have been created based on technology developed at the school.

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Yale University

(New Haven, CT, USA)

9th in U.S.

Yale University has everything one would expect from a major research university: it is one of the eight original Ivy League schools; it has a $20 billion endowment; and roughly one in six of its students come from foreign nations.

Yale has also had a disproportionate influence on American politics. Numerous major U.S. political careers have begun at Yale—the school’s notorious Skull and Bones secret society has produced three Presidents—and Yale Law School has been the preeminent law school in the country for years.

The university’s research centers address topics as varied as Benjamin Franklin’s writings, bioethics, magnetic resonance research, and the Russian archives.

Whereas many other elite institutions develop areas of specialization—be it Caltech’s and MIT’s focus on science and technology or Princeton’s focus on pure research—Yale is equally dominant in the humanities, the sciences, and the learned professions. This gives the school a unique ability to pursue interdisciplinary research.

Yale also enjoys a flexible alumni network that stretches to every corner of the globe.

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Oxford University

(Oxford, UK)

Oxford University traces its origins back to the 13th century. With its intellectual roots firmly planted in medieval scholasticism, Oxford has survived the centuries, adapted to the times, and grown into what it is today—one of the world’s most impressive centers of learning.

Perhaps more than any other school in the world, Oxford’s name has become synonymous with knowledge and learning. This is because the school runs the world’s largest—and arguably most prestigious—academic press, with offices in over 50 countries.

One in five people who learn English worldwide do so with Oxford University Press materials. This international appeal may explain why almost 40 percent of the student body comes from outside the U.K.

Oxford’s academic community includes 80 Fellows of the Royal Society and 100 Fellows of the British Academy. Over 17,200 people applied for 3,200 undergraduate places in 2014.

However, despite thousands of undergraduate students willing to pay full tuition and centuries of accumulated assets, the highest source of income for Oxford continues to be research grants and contracts.

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University of Chicago

(Chicago, IL, USA)

8th in U.S.

The University of Chicago was only founded in 1890, making it one of the youngest elite universities in the world. But despite its youth, the school has spearheaded many of the world’s most important scientific achievements.

It was here that Italian physicist Enrico Fermi created the world’s first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in 1942. It was likewise at Chicago that Stanley Miller and Harold Urey demonstrated in 1952 that amino acids essential to life could be produced starting from simple molecules such as methane and ammonia, thus founding the entire field of what has come to be known as “origin of life” research. Today, the university is one of the leading universities building on the work of its famous alum, James Watson, in the exploration of the human genome.

But Chicago is not just a science school. It also possesses great depth, with elite programs in the humanities and the social sciences, including its world-renowned Economics Department and its interdisciplinary gathering of highly distinguished thinkers known as the Committee on Social Thought.

Of Chicago’s 89 Nobel Prize winners, 22 have been in economics, which is remarkable given that the economics prize was only first awarded in 1969 (45 years ago at the time of this writing). Perhaps this is one reason why the university weathered the 2008 financial crisis relatively well!

In any case, the school’s approximately $7 billion endowment is now rapidly growing once more, assuring the continuation of the ample research opportunities it provides its faculty and students well into the future.

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Columbia University

 

(New York, NY, USA)

7th in U.S.

As one of the colonial colleges and the fifth-oldest school in the United States, Columbia has a lot of history. That history has created an internationally recognized, elite university with an $8.2 billion endowment and a library containing nearly 13 million volumes.

Columbia University is spread across five distinct campuses in New York City, including Columbia College, the undergraduate division. In 2013, 26,376 students applied for 1,751 admittances to Columbia College.

The university’s medical school—the College of Physicians and Surgeons, which was founded in 1767—produced the first M.D.’s in the 13 colonies. The school now graduates nearly 1,400 doctors per year.

Columbia is the leading university in the New York metropolitan area, which gives its students numerous unique opportunities that only proximity to Wall Street, the U.N., Broadway, and other epicenters of finance, politics, and culture can bring. The university’s ideal location also gives its students the chance to interact with various other respected institutions, such as New York University.

Eighty-two Columbians have won a Nobel Prize at some point in their careers.

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California Institute of Technology

(Pasadena, CA, USA)

6th in U.S.

Any school can assign a textbook for you to read on your own, but research universities pride themselves on giving you the opportunity to work alongside leaders in their respective fields who write the textbooks.

Of course, in order to do this efficiently a school needs a decent student/faculty ratio. Few schools can beat Caltech’s three-to-one ratio—which is one of the many reasons why this relatively young school has risen to international prominence.

Its faculty includes 33 Nobel Laureates, 58 National Medal of Science recipients, 13 National Medal of Technology and Innovation recipients, and 111 National Academy of Science members.

But to gain access to this prestigious collection of brilliant professors you will have to be the best of the best. Six thousand six hundred twenty-five applicants compete to be one of the 226 members of the freshman class—which is why 98 percent of the student body graduated in the top 10 percent of their class.

These students and teachers can also study at some of the school’s world-famous research centers, such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Seismological Laboratory, and the International Observatory Network.

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Princeton University

(Princeton, NJ, USA)

5th in U.S.

Princeton University is one of the oldest, most historic universities in the United States. Its famous Nassau Hall (right) still bears a cannonball scar from the 1777 Battle of Princeton, and its former president, John Witherspoon, was the only University president to sign the Declaration of Independence.

The school’s nearly three-century history has given it ample time to develop an impressive $18.2 billion endowment. But unlike the other big institutions it competes with—such as Yale, Harvard, and Stanford—Princeton spreads its considerable wealth across a far smaller number of students and programs.

Princeton has no law school, medical school, business school, or divinity school. Instead of developing professional programs, it has self-consciously evolved into a massive, research-driven think tank.

Whereas other schools typically direct their elite faculties’ attention towards graduate students, Princeton expects its professors to teach students of various academic levels. Furthermore, Princeton, more so than many other leading institutions, continues to challenge its students with a difficult grading scale. Even brilliant valedictorians who come here from around the country find that they need to focus on their studies.

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University of Cambridge

(Cambridge, UK)

As one of the oldest universities in the world (founded in 1209), Cambridge is an ancient school steeped in tradition.

It is small exaggeration to say the history of western science is built on a cornerstone called Cambridge. The roster of great scientists and mathematicians associated with the university includes Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, James Clerk Maxwell, Augustus De Morgan, Ernest Rutherford, G.H. Hardy, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, James Watson, Roger Penrose, and Stephen Hawking. Whether speaking of the unifying ideas in physics, the foundations of computer science, or the codifying of biology, Cambridge has been at the forefront of humanity’s quest for truth longer than most nations have existed.

Of course, great achievements are not restricted to the sciences. Such luminaries in the humanities as Desiderius Erasmus, John Milton, G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, John Maynard Keynes, and C.S. Lewis, among dozens of other great names, taught and studied here.

But despite the many memories conjured by its imposing Gothic architecture, Cambridge does not live in the past. The university remains one of the world’s elite research institutions, with only Oxford to rival it in the U.K. and only a handful of American schools able to do so from overseas.

Its over 18,000 students represent more than 135 countries and its faculty have earned over 80 Nobel laureates.

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University Of California at Berkeley

(Berkeley, CA, USA)

4th in U.S.

Berkeley is unique among the elite universities of the world. Most of the schools it competes with are privately owned, but Berkeley is a state school—albeit one with the elite status of a private school.

The university is nestled in a pleasant city by the same name, within easy commuting distance of San Francisco. With over 36,000 students, Berkeley is also one of the larger elite universities.

An impressive selection of talented students feeds its over 350 degree programs, producing more Ph. D’s annually than any other U.S. institution. Student research is encouraged as each year 52 percent of seniors assist their professors in their research.

Berkeley draws students from over 100 nations. During the previous decade the National Science Foundation granted its students more graduate research fellowships than any other school.

The faculty has produced 39 members of the American Philosophical Society, 77 Fulbright Scholars, 32 MacArthur Fellows, and 22 Nobel Laureates (eight of whom are current faculty members).

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

(Cambridge, MA, USA)

3rd in U.S.

In the century and a half since its founding in 1861, MIT has become the world’s preeminent science research center.

The university is known for a focused approach that uses first-class methodologies to tackle world-class problems. This pragmatic creativity has produced legions of scientists and engineers, as well as 80 Nobel Laureates, 56 National Medal of Science winners, 43 MacArthur Fellows, and 28 National Medal of Technology and Innovation winners.

Nevertheless, the school’s more than $10 billion endowment still leaves plenty of room for the arts and humanities. This is why MIT Press can publish 30 prestigious journals and 220 state-of-the-art books every year. Since 1899, MIT Technology Review has continuously researched developing trends in the industrial sciences and other related fields, making their publications essential for anyone trying to understand where future innovation is headed.

Notable people affiliated with MIT include Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, father of linguistics Noam Chomsky, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, and former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

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Stanford University

(Stanford, CA, USA)

2nd in U.S.

With an $18.7 billion endowment Stanford has access to numerous world-class research resources.

The school’s 1,189 acre Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve lets scientists study ecosystems first hand. Its 150-foot radio telescope, nicknamed “The Dish,” studies the ionosphere.

Stanford also boasts a 315-acre habitat reserve which is actively trying to bring back the endangered California tiger salamander. And the SLAC Accelerator Laboratory actively advances the U.S. Department of Energy’s research.

Stanford is also affiliated with the prestigious Hoover Institution, which is one of the nation’s leading social, political, and economic think tanks.

But it takes more than just great laboratories and facilities to build a great research center. Stanford also has some of the finest minds in the world working for it. The school’s faculty currently include 22 Nobel Laureates, 51 members of the American Philosophical Society, three Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, 158 National Academy of Science members, five Pulitzer Prize winners, and 27 MacArthur Fellows.

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