Harvard University: Quick Guide: Academics, Admissions & Student Life

Quick Facts

Why this school?

Harvard offers world-class research resources with a residential House system, turning small‑scale community living into a hub for interdisciplinary collaboration. Undergraduates have access to world‑class labs and faculty mentorship and benefit from an alumni network that opens doors in finance, biotech, public policy, and academia.

Majors at a Glance

Harvard's curriculum is expansive, but a handful of fields dominate the bachelor's degrees awarded each year. The College is best known for its strength in the social sciences and life sciences, with rapidly growing programs in computing and applied math sitting alongside long-standing humanities traditions.

Most Popular Majors

Based on bachelor's degrees awarded in 2023–24, the most popular paths cluster around the social sciences, life sciences, and quantitative fields:

• Social Sciences — by far the largest field at 598 graduates, encompassing Economics and Government and feeding the school's well-known pipelines into finance, consulting, law, and policy.
• Biological & Biomedical Sciences — 244 graduates, anchored by world-class labs and clinical partnerships; the default home for pre-med and research-track students.
• Mathematics & Statistics — 222 graduates, with a rigorous reputation that feeds quantitative finance, machine-learning research, and academia.
• Computer & Information Sciences — 184 graduates and growing quickly, with strong startup and tech-industry pipelines through Boston/Cambridge.
• History — 141 graduates, reflecting a long-standing humanities strength at the College.

Smaller & Niche Programs Worth Knowing

Harvard also runs a number of small, specialized concentrations that you won't find at most peer schools. They're worth a look if your interests sit at the edges of the standard catalog:

• Natural Resources & Conservation — 19 graduates, the smallest reported bachelor's field; environmental science and policy paths through the Harvard Forest and the Salata Institute.
• Area, Ethnic, Cultural, Gender & Group Studies — 21 graduates, covering programs such as African and African American Studies and East Asian Studies.
• Philosophy & Religious Studies — 22 graduates, with strong logic, ethics, and comparative religion offerings.

Academic experience

Harvard emphasizes close faculty mentorship and research opportunities for undergraduates. While large lectures exist in some introductory courses such as its CS50 courses, many upper‑level offerings take seminar or lab formats that foster direct faculty interaction. The residential House system further anchors academic advising and peer support, making sustained undergraduate research and mentorship more accessible.

Admissions snapshot

Harvard received just over 54,000 applications for the Fall 2024 entering class and admitted fewer than 2,000 students. Yield is exceptionally high at roughly 83.6%, meaning the overwhelming majority of admitted students choose to enroll. Test scores remain concentrated near the top of the SAT and ACT scales even though the College is test-optional through the 2026–27 cycle.

The entering class is also strikingly geographically diverse: only about 14% of first-year students come from Massachusetts, while roughly two-thirds come from elsewhere in the U.S. and another 17% from outside the country.

Applicant takeaway: Demonstrate sustained research or initiative in your chosen academic area, and show how you would contribute to House life and community service.

Cost & financial aid

Harvard is one of the most expensive schools in the country on paper and one of the least expensive for families who qualify for aid. The College meets 100% of demonstrated financial need for admitted students with grants rather than loans, and merit scholarships are not part of standard packages. For international students, Harvard is need-blind. The published 2024–25 cost of attendance is $89,315, but the average aid recipient pays only $17,525.

Most undergraduates receive significant aid: 58% of degree-seeking undergraduates received a grant or scholarship in 2023–24, with an average award of $59,539. Among full-time first-year students, 56% received institutional grants averaging $65,260, and 19% qualified for Pell grants (averaging $5,744). The result is a sharp sliding scale by family income.

Careers & outcomes

Graduates leave Harvard with both an exceptionally strong on-time completion rate and one of the highest median early-career salaries in the country. Roughly 87% of full-time first-years finish a bachelor's degree within four years, 98% within six, and 99% within eight. Median early-career salary sits around $101,817.

The most common careers are in finance, consulting, biotech and pharma, technology, and public policy. Recruiting is dense on campus thanks to Boston/Cambridge's biotech ecosystem, New York finance, and national policy networks. Alumni connections in each of these industries are a defining career advantage of attending Harvard.

Student life & culture

Harvard combines an academically intense environment with a wide range of student organizations and traditions centered on the House system. Students benefit from large research facilities while living in smaller residential communities that support extracurricular leadership and close social ties.

Diversity & support

Harvard enrolls a diverse student body across racial, ethnic, and national backgrounds, and the College invests heavily in support infrastructure such as first-gen programs, comprehensive mental health resources, and accessibility services are all available through the Harvard College site. International students make up just over a quarter of the total population, the largest single non-White cohort on campus.

Who thrives here / Who struggles here

Harvard rewards students who arrive with momentum: those who pursue independent research, embrace intense academic challenge, and want to leverage deep alumni networks for internships and post-graduate opportunities tend to flourish.

Applicants looking for a low-pressure environment or purely practical, skill-training focus may find the academic intensity and the surrounding social competition harder to enjoy.

Famous alumni

• John F. Kennedy — 35th U.S. President (A.B. in Government)
• Natalie Portman — Actor (A.B. in Psychology)
• Bill Gates — Founder of Microsoft (Harvard dropout)
• Barack Obama — 44th U.S. President (Harvard Law School)
• Mark Zuckerberg — Founder of Meta/Facebook (Harvard dropout)