What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$2,091 to $53,337 a year, depending on income.
College Scorecard 2024 estimate
See the price at your income ↑Sticker price
Full cost before aid: $85,540 a year. Average need-based aid package: $74,285.Aid and debt
55.6%
receive need-based grants
$22,926
average debt at graduation
20
students got merit aid
about 0% of undergraduates
$5,279
average merit award
Getting In
Key dates
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% by section: Reading 720–770 · Math 730–790. No combined range is published.
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 33–35 · 27% of the class submitted
95% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Considered
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- GPA
- SAT/ACT scores
- Personal essay
- Recommendations
- Extracurriculars
- Special talent
- Character
- First-gen status
- Legacy status
- Where you're from
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Not considered
- Class rank
- In-state residency
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
Harvard doesn't consider demonstrated interest in admissions at all — visits and follow-up emails won't move the needle here.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section C7 (admissions factors)
Harvard just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Harvard essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
73.6% of Harvard classes have fewer than 20 students.
73.6%
under 20 students
14.5%
20 to 49
11.9%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Harvard CDS 2025–26, I-3.
11:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
97%
live on campus
Who attends
- White28.7%
- Asian24.9%
- Hispanic10.8%
- Black8.1%
- Multiracial7.9%
- Unknown / other3.1%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Harvard CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
61.5% of Harvard students graduate in 4 years.
61.5%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
97.1%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
98%
return after first year
Finishing late means paying for extra semesters, so the 4-year rate is the one that shows the cost.
Students with Pell Grants
96.1% finish in 6 years, against 97.1% of all students.
Pell Grant students finish at about the same rate as everyone else.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Cambridge.
Harvard Square sits at the centre of Cambridge, with the Yard behind a brick wall in the middle of it and the houses running down to the Charles.
MoreLess
Boston is across the river, MIT a twenty-minute walk down Massachusetts Avenue, and almost nothing requires a car.
The City
Major city
Cambridge, MA
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
John Adams
Second President of the United States and a principal author of the Massachusetts constitution. He graduated here in 1755, at nineteen.
Class of 1755
Yo-Yo Ma
Nineteen-time Grammy winner and the most widely known cellist alive. He graduated here in anthropology in 1976, having already begun performing internationally.
Class of 1976
Natalie Portman
Won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Black Swan. She graduated here in psychology in 2003, taking time out of her film career to do it.
Class of 2003
Mark Zuckerberg
Founded Facebook in a dormitory here in 2004 and left during his second year to build it. He returned in 2017 to receive an honorary degree.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
The house system
After the first year in the Yard, every student is sorted into one of twelve residential houses, each with its own dining hall, tutors, library and traditions. It is the organising unit of social life for the remaining three years.
Housing Day
The March morning when current house members storm first-year dormitories to deliver sorting letters, loudly and in costume.
Primal Scream
Students run through the Yard at midnight before finals begin, a ritual of no fixed origin that the university has stopped trying to discourage.
The Game
The football rivalry with Yale, played since 1875 and known by no other name.
Weekend escapes from Cambridge
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Cambridge
Boston across the river
About 15 minutes by subwayThe North End, Fenway and the harbour, close enough to be an evening out.
Walden Pond
About 30 minutesThoreau's pond, now a state reservation with swimming and a trail around it.
Cape Cod
About 1 hour 30 minutesBeaches and dunes for the warm months.
The White Mountains
About 2 hours 30 minutesNew Hampshire's peaks for hiking and autumn colour.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Boston Logan International (BOS)
About 20 minutes from campus
Flies international — you can start a trip abroad from here.
Pro sports nearby
- Boston Red Sox MLB
- Boston Celtics NBA
- Boston Bruins NHL
- New England Patriots NFL
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Boston and Cambridge put biotech, finance, consulting and hospitals within a subway ride, and the alumni network reaches everywhere else.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Massachusetts General Hospital
- McKinsey & Company
- Fidelity Investments
- Moderna
- Bain & Company
Cambridge and downtown Boston, minutes apart by subway
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Harvard admits 4.2% and has reinstated the SAT or ACT requirement. The financial picture is the part families most often get wrong: 100% of demonstrated need is met, 55.6% of undergraduates receive need-based aid, the average package is $74,285 and graduates who borrow leave owing about $22,926. For a large share of families the published price is simply not the price. The timeline is the number that surprises: 61.5% graduate within four years and 97.1% within six. Almost everyone finishes; a great many simply take longer, because leave years are ordinary here rather than a sign of trouble, and a family should plan for the possibility rather than be startled by it. Teaching runs closer than the size suggests, with 73.6% of sections under 20 across 6,738 undergraduates, though the ratio of 11:1 is the loosest among the highly selective privates here. What shapes the four years more than anything is the house system: 97.0% live in university housing, and after the first year students are sorted into residential houses with their own dining halls, tutors and traditions, which is where the social life happens rather than in clubs or Greek organisations.