Harvard University Data & Information Overview

Find out more about how Harvard University ranks, how diverse it is, what majors it offers, and other essential facts below. Want to know more about a specific stat? Just click on its tile, and you’ll go to a page that goes more in-depth on that subject. You can also use the links below to go directly to any section on this page.

• Rankings
• Admission and Acceptance
• Faculty
• Retention and Graduation Rates
• Diversity
• Cost
• Student Debt
• Average Earnings
• Location
• Majors
• Online Learning
• Related Schools

How Well Is Harvard University Ranked?

2022 Rankings

College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities in its annual rankings and ranks them in a variety of ways, including most diverse, best overall quality, best for non-traditional students, and much more.

Harvard University was awarded 3,790 badges in the 2022 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is environmental health.

Overall Quality

According to College Factual's 2022 analysis, Harvard is ranked #10 out of 2,576 schools in the nation that were analyzed for overall quality. This puts it in the top 1% of all schools in the nation!

Out of the 72 colleges in Massachusetts, Harvard is ranked at #2.

See all of the rankings for Harvard University.

Is It Hard to Get Into Harvard?

Acceptance Rate

Even if you have the best grades and high test scores, that may not be enough to get into Harvard since the school has one of the most selective in the country. Its acceptance rate is a mere 5%, so there's no shame if you don't get in. Be sure to apply to other schools just in case.

Average Test Scores

About 72% of students accepted to Harvard submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 720 and 780. Math scores were between 740 and 800.

Harvard received ACT scores from 45% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 33 and 35.

Learn more about Harvard University admissions.

Harvard University Faculty

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio at Harvard is an impressive 5 to 1. That's quite good when you compare it to the national average of 15 to 1. This is a good sign that students at the school will have more opportunities for one-on-one interactions with their professors.

Percent of Full-Time Faculty

Another measure that is often used to estimate how much access students will have to their professors is how many faculty members are full-time. The idea here is that part-time faculty tend to spend less time on campus, so they may not be as available to students as full-timers.

The full-time faculty percentage at Harvard University is 86%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Retention and Graduation Rates at Harvard University

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate of 76% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Harvard University enough to come back for another year. This is a fair bit higher than the national average of 68%. That's certainly something to check off in the good column about the school.

Graduation Rate

The on-time graduation rate for someone pursuing a bachelor's degree is typically four years. This rate at Harvard for first-time, full-time students is 87%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Harvard University.

Harvard University Undergraduate Student Diversity

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 8,527 undergraduates at Harvard with 5,699 being full-time and 2,828 being part-time.

How Much Does Harvard University Cost?

The overall average net price of Harvard is $15,386. The affordability of the school largely depends on your financial need since net price varies by income group. See the table below for the net price for different income groups.

Net Price by Income Group for Harvard

$0-30 K	$30K-48K	$48-75	$75-110K	$110K +
$2,973	$1,010	$3,411	$15,553	$46,160

The net price is calculated by adding tuition, room, board and other costs and subtracting financial aid.Note that the net price is typically less than the published for a school. For more information on the sticker price of Harvard, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.

Student Loan Debt

It's not uncommon for college students to take out loans to pay for school. In fact, almost 66% of students nationwide depend at least partially on loans. At Harvard, approximately 7% of students took out student loans averaging $10,464 a year. That adds up to $41,856 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Harvard is 1.1%. This is significantly lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, which is a good sign that you'll be able to pay back your student loans.

Get more details about paying for Harvard University.

How Much Money Do Harvard Graduates Make?

Yearly salaries vary depending on what you major in, but on average, bachelor's degree recipients from Harvard make around $89,700 per year during the early years of their employment. This is good news for future Harvard graduates since it is 125% more than the average college graduate's salary of $39,802 per year.

See which majors at Harvard University make the most money.

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Location of Harvard University

Harvard University is a private not-for-profit institution located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The surrounding area of the school is a good match for students who enjoy city life.

Get more details about the location of Harvard University.

Contact details for Harvard are given below.

	Contact Details
Address:	Massachusetts Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone:	617-495-1000
Website:	www.harvard.edu/
Facebook:	http://facebook.com/harvard
Twitter:	http://twitter.com/harvard

Harvard University Majors

During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 114 majors graduated from Harvard University. Of these students, 1,945 received undergraduate degrees and 6,437 graduated with a master's or doctor's degree. The following table lists the most popular undergraduate majors along with the average salary graduates from those majors make.

Most Popular Majors	Bachelor’s Degrees	Average Salary of Graduates
Economics	215	$81,333
Computer Science	190	$142,198
General Social Sciences	157	$50,231
History	145	$50,231
Political Science & Government	102	$57,318
Applied Mathematics	98	$104,749
Child Development & Psychology	77	$61,020
Neurobiology & Neurosciences	76	$54,713
Statistics	75	$86,867
Ecology, Evolution & Systematics Biology	68	$46,673

Learn more about the majors offered at Harvard University along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Online Learning at Harvard

Online learning is becoming popular at even the oldest colleges and universities in the United States. Not only are online classes great for returning adults with busy schedules, they are also frequented by a growing number of traditional students.

In 2019-2020, 29,581 students took at least one online class at Harvard University. This is an increase from the 5,815 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year	Took at Least One Online Class	Took All Classes Online
2019-2020	29,581	27,933
2018-2019	5,815	4,185
2017-2018	5,681	4,087
2016-2017	4,600	3,244
2015-2016	3,885	2,698

Learn more about online learning at Harvard University.

Related Schools

If you’re considering Harvard University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.

• Amherst College
• Bowdoin College
• Dartmouth College
• University of Pennsylvania
• Vanderbilt University

Curious on how these schools stack up against Harvard? Pit them head to head with College Combat, our free interactive tool that lets you compare college on the features that matter most to you!

Notes and References

Footnotes

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

References

• National Center for Education Statistics
• College Scorecard
• Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
• Image Credit: By Elisa.rolle under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.