Harvard University is the oldest U.S. university.

Harvard University is the oldest U.S. university, founded in 1636. Over 20% of Harvard’s students are overseas and most are graduate students. Cambridge is home to Harvard, but Boston is home to the Harvard Medical School. The university possesses the world’s greatest endowment. Harvard has around 100 research institutes in several fields.

The university has an undergraduate college and 11 degree-granting institutes, including the top-ranked Business School, Graduate School of Education, Law School, and John F. Kennedy School of Government. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brigham and Women’s Hospital are teaching hospitals for the medical school. Harvard students most often study social sciences, biology/biological sciences, history, math, and psychology. The university uses a semester system and teaches in English. As freshmen, most undergraduates reside around the Harvard Yard in the middle of campus, then in one of 12 undergraduate houses for four years. University housing is accessible to graduate students. The Harvard Library, with over 70 libraries and 19 million volumes, is the world’s biggest academic library.

Rankings for Harvard University
Harvard tops global university rankings. Schools are graded by performance on generally acknowledged excellence factors. Learn how we rate schools.