"Harvard College is a personal Ivy Organization research study university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with concerning 6,800 undergraduate students as well as regarding 14,000 postgraduate pupils. Developed in 1636 as well as called for its initial benefactor, clergyman John Harvard, Harvard is the United States' oldest organization of higher discovering and also one of the most respected worldwide.

The Massachusetts Great and General Court accredited Harvard's beginning. In its early years, Harvard College mainly educated Congregational and also Unitarian clergy, although it has actually never ever been formally associated with any denomination. Its educational program and pupil body were gradually secularized throughout the 18th century, and also by the 19th century, Harvard had become the central cultural facility amongst Boston elites. [9] [10] Following the American Civil War, President Charles W. Eliot's lengthy tenure (1869-- 1909) changed the college and affiliated expert schools right into a modern study college; Harvard was an establishing member of the Organization of American Universities in 1900. A. Lawrence Lowell, who prospered Eliot, more changed the undergraduate educational program as well as carried out aggressive development of Harvard's land holdings and also physical university. James Bryant Conant led the university with the Great Depression and also The Second World War; he began to liberalize admissions after the battle.

The college is made up of eleven principal scholastic devices-- 10 professors as well as the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Research study-- with campuses throughout Greater Boston: its 209-acre (85 ha) original undergraduate university is centered on Harvard Lawn in Cambridge, 3 miles (5 kilometres) northwest of Boston; the business college and numerous sports centers, consisting of Harvard Arena, are across the Charles River in the Allston area of Boston; and the medical, dental, and public health schools are in Boston's Longwood Medical Location. Harvard's endowment is valued at $40.9 billion, making it the biggest of any kind of scholastic organization. While the nominal expense of presence is high, the university's endowment allows it to supply charitable, no-loan financial aid packages and use need-blind admission. The Harvard Library is the world's largest academic library system, comprising 79 individual libraries holding about 20.4 million things.

Harvard's graduates include 8 U.S. presidents, more than 30 foreign presidents, 188 living billionaires, 369 Rhodes Scholars, as well as 252 Marshall Scholars. As of March 2020, 160 Nobel laureates, 18 Fields Medalists, as well as 14 Turing Honor winners have been affiliated as students, professors, or researchers. On top of that, Harvard pupils and graduates have won 10 Academy Awards, 48 Pulitzer Prizes, and 108 Olympic medals (46 gold, 41 silver, and 21 bronze), and also established numerous notable business worldwide."