Khana Ranjan Roy & Arafat Mustafa :: Harvard is the home of American ideas. It is devoted to excellence in teaching, learning, and research and to develop leaders in many disciplines who make a difference globally.

The university, which is based in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts, United States, has an enrollment of over 22,000 degree candidates, including undergraduate, graduate and professional students. Harvard has more than 360,000 living alumni in the US and over 202 other countries.  

The university has grown from nine students with a single master degree candidate. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States, established in the 8th September 1636 by the vote of the Great and General court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

It was named after the college’s first benefactor, the young English minister in America, Jhon Harvard (1607-1638), who was a godly gentleman and a lover of learning. The institution consider him the most honored of its founders those whose efforts and contributions in its early days ensured its permanence.

A statue of Jhon Harvard stands today in front of University Hall in Harvard Yard and is perhaps the University’s best known landmark. The university has twelve degree granting schools in addition to the Radcliffe Institution for Advanced Study, offering a truly global education.

Harvard is known for global leadership in education, and the Harvard faculty is composed of men and women who are world class scholars. Faculty members come from across the country and all over the world, bringing with them a diverse wealth of knowledge.

Almost all Harvard college courses are designed, taught and overseen by Harvard faculty, and virtually all faculty are required to teach is highly accessible, and Harvard college class size are on average below 40, with over half the courses  being offered each semester enrolling 10 or fewer students.

This allows for a closer student-professor relationship and contributes to the sense of community on campus. Professors also make themselves available to students outside of the classroom, even beyond office hours, such as meeting in dining hall or before or after class. The faculties at Harvard make appoint of connecting with their students to create a fulfilling academic experience. 

Harvard’s House system extends teaching, learning and advising into the residential environment. Harvard collegeincludes twelve residential house, a selection of which have been featured in Harvard Gazette. Harvard provides their latest news for the parents of Harvard students as well as general people in their daily gazette email newsletter.

Harvard offers unparalleled resources to the University community, including libraries, laboratories, museums, and research centers to support scholarly work in nearly any field or discipline. The Harvard student experience is characterized by unlimited possibilities.

Opportunities abound inside the classroom and out, with over 8,000 courses from over 100 departments and countless research programs. Here, undergraduate students have access to almost every extracurricular program imaginable and the largest division. Athletics Program in the country. And after graduation, students join the Harvard Alumni Association.

The Harvard Library System comprises about 76 libraries, with more than 18 million volumes. It is the oldest library system in the United States and the largest university library and largest private library system in the world. Based on number of items held (including musical scores, maps, prints, recordings, etc.), it is the fifth largest library in the United States, based only on volumes (generally books), it is the third largest, after the Library of Congress and Boston Public Library. Harvard’s Library system grew from a bequest in 1638 by Jhon Harvard of 400 books. 

Harvard is one of the most expensive institutions in the world. On the other hand, for the students who are excited to investigate the biggest issues of the 21st century, Harvard offers an unparalleled student experience and a generous financial aid program, with over $160 million awarded to more than 60% of undergraduate students. 50% of Harvard students receive scholarship aid. 100% of their students can graduate debt-free. 20% of their students’ families pay nothing. 

Harvard greets people from all over the world, providing historical and general information about campus to visitors, neighbors and the public. People can take the opportunity to meet their current students and explore the Cambridge/Boston area. Many students will not be able to visit colleges before applying. As an alternative, they strongly recommend their virtual tour. In addition, examining their website will yield a vast amount of information about Harvard past, present and future.

They encourage prospective students to learn more about Harvard College by attending an information session and/or by taking a campus tour. Their information sessions are led by admissions officers, usually accompanied by current undergraduates. Typical discussion topics include academic and non academic life, housing the admissions process, and financial aid.

They no longer offer private tour or information session to groups of 11 or more. Groups of 10 or fewer can join their information sessions and the regular tour. People can also take online guided tour to see the Harvard campus at any time, from any location. Student guides lead a people through the places they live and learn, including from rooms, classroom, Widener Library, the freshman dining hall and more.

Getting into Harvard is the most difficult thing about Harvard. A candidate will need exceptionally good grades and some vital qualities to get into Harvard. The first condition of a candidate’s qualities is the “LANGUAGE”. A candidate should have the qualities of understanding as well as speaking fluently the language of English. After that with a GPA of 4.18, Harvard requires a candidate to be at the top of his/her class.

For admitting in any subject or department of Harvard, candidates have to contact with a professor of the related subject or department. That makes the admission process easier. After passing the written exam, candidates have to give another exam, which is called I-20. All candidates have to link up the mark sheet of the TOEFL exam with the applying papers.           

Throughout the Harvard’s history, a sizeable number of Harvard alumni have become notable in many varied fields. Eight United States’ Presidents, Jhon Adams (2nd President of the United States), Jhon Quincy (6th President of the United States), Rutherfurd B. Hayes (19th President of the United States), Theodore Roosevelt (26th President of the United States), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (32nd President of the United States), Jhon F Kennedy (35th President of the United States), George W. Bush (43rd President of the United States), Barak Obama (44th President of the United States) have graduated from Harvard University.

George W. Bush graduated from Harvard Business School, Rutherfurd B. Hayes and Barak Obama from Harvard Law School and the others from Harvard College. Besides them Al Gore (45th Vice President of the United States), Natalie Portman (Israeli-American actress), Mark Zuckerberg (American Internet entrepreneur and creator of facebook) have also graduated from Harvard University. Over 150 Nobel Prize Winners have been associated with the University as alumni, researchers or faculty.

Let us feel proud for one of the oldest remarkable Educational Institutions in the world and salute its founder Jhon Harvard.