Harvard University is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded in 1636 and generally recognized as the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. It comprises Harvard College, its undergraduate school, alongside twelve graduate and professional schools covering law, medicine, business, public health, education, government and the arts and sciences. This guide focuses mainly on Harvard College, the undergraduate program most prospective students search for, and draws on Harvard’s own admissions, registrar and financial aid pages for the curriculum, the qualification earned, the language of instruction, the age range, the fees and the other details that matter most.
Harvard’s curriculum for undergraduates rests on what the university calls the Harvard College Curriculum, a set of institute-wide requirements that sit alongside a student’s chosen concentration, the Harvard term for a major. These requirements include four General Education courses, one from each of four categories: Aesthetics and Culture; Ethics and Civics; Histories, Societies, Individuals; and Science and Technology in Society. Beginning with the Class of 2029, all four of these Gen Ed courses must be taken for a letter grade rather than pass or fail. Alongside Gen Ed sits a Divisional Distribution requirement, which asks students to take one departmental course in each of three broad divisions: Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science and Engineering and Applied Science. Students also complete a Quantitative Reasoning with Data requirement, an Expository Writing course, and, depending on background, a foreign language requirement. Roughly a third of the courses a student takes toward their degree go toward these college-wide requirements, with the rest split between concentration coursework and free electives.
Harvard College offers 50 concentrations, most with the option of an honors or non-honors track, and many allow a portion of concentration credit to be earned through study abroad. Students are not required to pick a concentration before arriving and instead declare it during the first semester of sophomore year, after a semester or more spent sampling different departments. A full degree requires 128 credits, organized as 32 four-credit courses, completed across eight semesters, with first-year students in their first term ordinarily taking exactly four courses. Students may also pursue a joint concentration that combines requirements from two overlapping fields, or add a secondary field, Harvard’s term for a minor, which is optional.
Graduates of Harvard College receive either a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science, depending on their concentration. At the graduate level, Harvard’s various schools confer degrees ranging from the Master of Arts, Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy through the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to professional degrees such as the Juris Doctor at Harvard Law School, the Doctor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Master of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, each governed by its own admission process and requirements separate from Harvard College’s.
Instruction across Harvard College is conducted in English. Somewhat unusually among selective American universities, Harvard’s official admissions materials do not list TOEFL or IELTS as a required part of the first-year application, even for international applicants, though the Admissions Committee reviews every part of an application, including any English proficiency evidence a student chooses to submit, in the context of their educational background.
Harvard sets no explicit age minimum or maximum for admission to the College. Entry depends on completed or in-progress secondary education rather than age, and Harvard’s application requirements are identical for international and domestic applicants: the same deadlines, the same materials and the same review process. In practice, most entering students are recent secondary school graduates, since a completed or nearly completed secondary education is the baseline expectation, but the university does not publish a stated age policy barring older applicants.
Admission to Harvard College is need-blind, meaning financial circumstances play no role in the admissions decision itself for the vast majority of applicants. Students apply through the Common Application, along with Harvard-specific short-answer questions, currently five prompts of about 150 words each, an $85 application fee or a fee waiver, school reports, teacher recommendations and a midyear grade report. Harvard reinstated mandatory SAT or ACT submission beginning with the Class of 2029, reversing its pandemic-era test-optional policy; the university states it expects every applicant capable of accessing a test site to submit scores, and only exceptional cases involving cost or access barriers may substitute Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, GCSE or A-Level results, or national leaving exam scores instead. Interviews, where offered, are conducted by capacity-limited alumni volunteers and their absence does not count against an applicant. Applicants choose between Restrictive Early Action, a non-binding but single-choice option due November 1 with test scores requested by the end of October, and Regular Decision, due January 1. For the Class of 2029, Harvard received 47,893 applications and admitted 2,003 students, an acceptance rate of about 4.2 percent, with a yield rate of 83.6 percent among admitted students who chose to enroll. International students made up 15 percent of the enrolled class, first-generation students about 20 percent, and an estimated 21 percent of students qualified for federal Pell grants.
Fees are published annually by the Harvard College Faculty of Arts and Sciences Registrar. For the 2026 to 2027 academic year, the billed cost of attendance totals 91,634 dollars, made up of 62,226 dollars in tuition, 6,216 dollars in required fees, 14,250 dollars for housing and 8,942 dollars for food. On top of that billed total, Harvard estimates additional unbilled costs for books, personal expenses and travel, which together bring the full cost of attendance closer to 95,000 to 100,000 dollars depending on a student’s individual circumstances. Health insurance is required at 4,954 dollars for 2026 to 2027 unless a student is already covered under a family plan, in which case the charge is waived.
As with MIT, Harvard’s published sticker price is not what most students actually pay. Harvard significantly expanded its financial aid program starting with the 2025 to 2026 academic year: students from families with an income of 200,000 dollars a year or less, assessed with typical assets, are not billed for tuition at all, and those from families earning 100,000 dollars a year or less have their entire cost of attendance covered, including housing, food, health insurance, travel and a start-up grant in their first year plus a separate grant in their junior year. Families earning above 200,000 dollars a year may still qualify for aid depending on individual circumstances, assessed case by case. Harvard states that roughly 86 percent of American families with a child admitted to Harvard now qualify for some level of financial aid under this policy, and for the Class of 2029, nearly half of enrolled students paid no tuition at all. Harvard’s undergraduate financial aid budget runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and none of the aid is offered as loans; Harvard replaces the loan component of a typical aid package with grants that do not require repayment.
Key school information at a glance:
- Type: private research university, founded 1636, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Structure: Harvard College (undergraduate) plus twelve graduate and professional schools
- Qualifications: Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science (undergraduate, across 50 concentrations); Master’s, Ph.D. and professional degrees such as the J.D., M.D. and M.B.A. at the graduate schools
- Language of instruction: English; no TOEFL or IELTS formally required for first-year admission
- Age range: none specified; admission is based on completed secondary education rather than age
- Tuition and fees: 62,226 dollars plus 6,216 dollars in required fees for 2026 to 2027; billed cost of attendance with housing and food totals 91,634 dollars
- Financial aid: need-blind; families earning 200,000 dollars a year or less pay no tuition, and those earning 100,000 dollars or less pay nothing at all
- Acceptance rate: about 4.2 percent for the Class of 2029, with a yield rate of 83.6 percent and international students making up 15 percent of the class
- Application: the Common Application plus Harvard-specific essays; Restrictive Early Action due November 1, Regular Decision due January 1
- Source: figures drawn from Harvard College Admissions, the Harvard FAS Registrar and Harvard College Financial Aid
Because Harvard revises its tuition, fees and financial aid thresholds each year, and because admissions statistics such as acceptance rate and applicant totals are only released after each cycle closes, applicants should confirm the current figures directly on Harvard’s official admissions and financial aid pages before applying or budgeting.
