Harvard College

First building of Harvard College 1638–1670

The school came into existence in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony—though without a single building, instructor, or student. In 1638, the college became home for North America's first known printing press, carried by the ship John of London.[7][8] Three years later, the college was renamed in honor of deceased Charlestown minister John Harvard (1607–1638) who had bequeathed to the school his entire library and half of his monetary estate.

Harvard's first headmaster was Nathaniel Eaton (1610–1674); in 1639, he also became its first instructor to be dismissed, for overstrict discipline.[9] The school's first students were graduated in 1642.

The Harvard Indian College was established, with the capacity for four or five Native Americans, and in 1665 Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck (c. 1643–1666) "from the Wampanoag … did graduate from Harvard, the first Indian to do so in the colonial period."[10]

Harvard College in Colonial times

The colleges of England's Oxford and Cambridge Universities are communities within the larger university, each an association of scholars sharing room and board. Harvard's founders may have envisioned it as the first in a series of sibling colleges on the English model which would eventually constitute a university—though no further colleges materialized in colonial times. The Indian College was active from 1640 to no later than 1693, but it was a minor addition not operated in federation with Harvard according to the English model. Harvard began granting higher degrees in the late eighteenth century, and it was increasingly styled Harvard University, even as Harvard College was increasingly thought of as the university's undergraduate division in particular.

Currently, Harvard College is responsible for undergraduate admissions, advising, housing, student life, and athletics—generally all undergraduate matters except instruction, which is the purview of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The body known as the President and Fellows of Harvard College retains its traditional name despite having governance of the entire University. Radcliffe College, established in 1879, originally paid Harvard faculty to repeat their lectures for women.[11] Since the 1970s, Harvard has been responsible for undergraduate matters for women, though women's Harvard diplomas were countersigned by the President of Radcliffe until a final merger in 1999.[12]

Massachusetts Hall (1720) is the oldest building on the Harvard campus.[13]

Admission is based on academic prowess, extracurricular activities, and personal qualities. For the undergraduate class of 2025, Harvard had 57,435 applications and accepted 1,968 (3.4% acceptance rate). For the undergraduate class of 2023, the middle 50% range of SAT scores of enrolled freshmen was 710–770 for reading and writing and 750–800 for math, while the middle 50% range of the ACT composite score was 33–35. The average high school grade point average (GPA) was 4.18.[1] The acceptance rate for transfer students has been approximately 1%.[14] Harvard consistently ranks first in the enrollment of recipients of the National Merit $2,500 Scholarship; it enrolled 207 such scholars in the Class of 2022.[15]

Harvard College ended its early admissions program in 2007, but for the class of 2016 and beyond, an early action program was reintroduced.[16] The freshman class that entered in the fall of 2017 was the first to be majority (50.8%) nonwhite.[17]

A federal lawsuit alleges that Harvard's admissions policies discriminate against Asian Americans, who tend to be overrepresented among students with high academic achievement.[18][19] A 2019 district court decision in the case (which has since been appealed) found no evidence of explicit racial bias but did not rule out a small amount of implicit bias.[20] Harvard has implemented more implicit bias training for its admissions staff in accordance with the court's recommendations.[21][22] In addition, Harvard's admissions preference for children of alumni, employees, and donors has been criticized as favoring white and wealthy candidates.[23][24][25]

The median family income of Harvard students is $168,800, with 53% of students coming from the top 10% highest-earning families and 20% from the bottom 60%.[26] As of 2019, Harvard College tuition was about $48,000 and total costs about $70,000. However, Harvard offers one of the most generous financial aid programs in the United States, with need-blind admission and 100% of financial need met for all students. Families with incomes below $65,000 pay nothing for their children to attend, while families earning up to $150,000 pay no more than 10% of their annual incomes. Financial aid is solely based on need; no merit or athletic scholarships are offered.[27]

The four-year, full-time undergraduate program has a liberal arts and sciences focus.[28][29] To graduate in the usual four years, undergraduates normally take four courses per semester.[30]

Midway through the second year, most undergraduates join one of fifty academic majors; many also declare a minor (secondary field). Joint majors (combining the requirements of two majors) and special majors (of the student's own design) are also possible.[29] Most majors lead to the Artium Baccalaureus (AB). Some award the Scientiae Baccalaureus (SB). There are also dual degree programs permitting students to earn both a Harvard AB and a Master of Music (MM) from either the New England Conservatory of Music or the Berklee College of Music over five years.[31] In most majors, an honors degree requires advanced coursework and/or a senior thesis.[32]

Harvard College students must take a course in each of four General Education categories (Aesthetics and Culture; Ethics and Civics; Histories, Societies, Individuals; Science and Technology in Society)[33] as well as a course in each of three academic divisions (Arts and Humanities; Social Sciences; Science and Engineering and Applied Science). They must also fulfill foreign language, expository writing, and quantitative reasoning with data requirements.[33] Exposure to a range of intellectual areas in parallel with pursuit of a chosen major in depth fulfills the injunction of former Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell that liberal education should produce "men who know a little of everything and something well".[34]

Some introductory courses have large enrollments, but most courses are small: the median class size is 12 students.[35] Funding and faculty mentorship for research is available in all disciplines for undergraduates at all levels.[36]

• Notable alumni include:
• 
  Minister, author, and pamphleteer Cotton Mather (AB, 1678)
• 
  US president John Adams[56] (AB, 1755)
• 
  US president John Quincy Adams[57][58] (AB, 1787)
• 
  Philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (AB, 1821)
• 
  Naturalist, poet and philosopher Henry David Thoreau (AB, 1837)
• 
  US supreme court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (AB, 1861)
• 
  Philosopher and mathematician Charles Sanders Peirce (AB, 1862)
• 
  US president and Nobel laureate in peace Theodore Roosevelt[59] (AB, 1880)
• 
  US president Franklin D. Roosevelt[60] (AB, 1903)
• 
  Author, political activist, and lecturer Helen Keller (AB, 1904, Radcliffe College)
• 
  Poet and Nobel laureate in literature T. S. Eliot (AB, 1909)
• 
  Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (AB, 1925)
• 
  Composer Leonard Bernstein (AB, 1939)
• 
  US president John F. Kennedy[61] (AB, 1940)
• 
  US secretary of state and Nobel laureate in peace Henry Kissinger (AB, 1950)
• 
  US vice president and Nobel laureate in peace Al Gore (AB, 1969)
• 
  US senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (AB, 1971)
• 
  11th Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto (AB, 1973, Radcliffe College)
• 
  Philosopher, political activist, and social critic Cornel West (AB, 1973)
• 
  US attorney general Merrick Garland (AB, 1974)
• 
  Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke (AB, 1975)
• 
  US supreme court chief justice John Roberts (AB, 1976)
• 
  Microsoft founder Bill Gates (1977)[lower-alpha 2]
• 
  US secretary of state Antony Blinken (AB, 1984)
• 
  Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg (2006)[lower-alpha 2]
• 
  Basketball player Jeremy Lin (AB, 2010)

• King, M. (1884). Harvard and Its Surroundings. Cambridge: Moses King.
• Monaghan, E. J. (2005). Learning to Read and Write in Colonial America. Boston: UMass Press.

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