Harvard University

Harvard University was founded in 1636 and is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Its main campus is in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with the business school across the river and the medical and public health schools in the Longwood area of Boston.

Undergraduate teaching happens in Harvard College, while the majority of students are enrolled in the graduate and professional schools — law, business, medicine, public health, design, education, government and the graduate school of arts and sciences.

Undergraduate study follows the American liberal arts pattern: general education requirements across several fields before and alongside a concentration, with the choice of concentration made after arrival rather than at application.

Admission is extremely competitive and reviewed as a whole profile.

• An outstanding secondary record, with the strongest available curriculum in the applicant's own school system.
• Essays and recommendations, which are central to the review rather than supporting documents.
• Standardised testing requirements as published for the current cycle, which have changed over recent years.
• English proficiency evidence where prior instruction was not in English.
• For graduate and professional schools: requirements set entirely by the individual school, including its own tests, portfolios or work experience expectations.

Harvard publishes a cost of attendance by school, and its need-based aid policy makes the sticker price a poor guide to what many students actually pay.

• One rate regardless of nationality at undergraduate level, as at other US private universities.
• Cost of attendance covers tuition, housing, food, insurance and fees, published annually.
• Undergraduate aid is need-based, not merit-based, and international applicants are assessed on the same basis as US ones.
• Each graduate and professional school sets its own fees and its own funding policy — the law, business, medical and arts-and-sciences schools differ substantially, so there is no single Harvard graduate fee.
• Mandatory health insurance, unless equivalent cover is demonstrated.
• Doctoral students in arts and sciences are generally funded, so the published figure does not describe their cost.

US costs are quoted as a "cost of attendance" — tuition plus housing, food, insurance, books and fees — and that total, not the tuition line, is what a visa application and your budget need. Work from the cost of attendance published by the specific Harvard school you are applying to for your specific programme and year of entry — it is the only figure that will be correct for you, and it is republished every year. We will confirm the current cost and what it includes before you commit to an application.

Harvard assesses undergraduate financial aid on need rather than merit and extends that assessment to international applicants. Its graduate and professional schools run their own funding, and terms differ substantially between them.

• Need-based undergraduate aid — assessed on family financial circumstances, international applicants included.
• School-level graduate funding — set independently by each graduate and professional school.
• Research and teaching appointments — a common route for doctoral students.

Check the published policy on international eligibility before applying — it differs sharply between institutions, and it is the single fact that should shape your shortlist.

A campus centred on Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, organised for undergraduates around residential houses.

• Harvard Yard and the surrounding campus, with the professional schools on nearby sites across Cambridge and Boston.
• The house system — undergraduates are assigned to a residential house after first year, which becomes their community, dining hall and support structure.
• An enormous range of student organisations, publications and performing arts, much of it student-run and long-established.
• Extensive library and museum access, among the largest academic collections anywhere.
• Guaranteed undergraduate housing for four years.
• Boston across the river, with a large multi-university student population.

The house system does more than accommodate people — it is where advising, dining and much of social life sit. For undergraduates it shapes the experience more than the department does.