Harvard University is a private Ivy League research
university in Cambridge,Massachusetts,
established in 1636. Its history, influence and wealth have made it one of the
most prestigious universities in the world.
The
University is organized into eleven separate academic units—ten faculties and
the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study—with
campuses throughout the Boston metropolitan area. its 209-acre (85 ha) main campus
is centered onHarvard
Yard in
Cambridge, approximately 3 miles (5 km) northwest ofBoston; the business school and
athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium, are
located across the Charles River in
the Allston neighborhood of Boston and the medical, dental, and public health schools are in the Longwood Medical Area. Harvard
has the largest financial
endowment of
any academic institution in the world, standing at $32.3 billion as of June 2013.
Harvard's
209-acre (85 ha) main campus is centered on Harvard
Yard in
Cambridge, about 3 miles (4.8 km) west-northwest of the State
House in
downtown Boston, and extends into the surrounding Harvard Square neighborhood.
Harvard Yard itself contains the central administrative offices and main libraries of the university,
academic buildings including Sever Hall and University Hall, Memorial Church, and the majority of the freshman dormitories. Sophomore, junior, and senior undergraduates
live in twelve residential
Houses, nine of which are south of Harvard Yard along or near the Charles River. The
other three are located in a residential neighborhood half a mile northwest of
the Yard at the Quadrangle (commonly
referred to as the Quad), which formerly housed Radcliffe College students
until Radcliffe merged its residential system with Harvard. The Harvard MBTA station provides
public transportation via bus service and the Red Line subway.
Harvard
operates several arts, cultural, and scientific museums. The Harvard
Art Museums comprises
three museums. The Arthur M. Sackler Museum includes
collections of ancient, Asian, Islamic and later Indian art, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, formerly the Germanic Museum, covers central and
northern European art, and the Fogg
Museum of Art, covers Western art from the Middle Ages to the present
emphasizing Italian early Renaissance, British pre-Raphaelite, and
19th-century French art. The Harvard Museum of Natural History includes
the Harvard Mineralogical Museum, Harvard University Herbaria featuring
the Blaschka Glass Flowers exhibit,
and the Museum of Comparative Zoology.
Other museums include the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts,
designed by Le Corbusier,
housing the film archive, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology,
specializing in the cultural history and civilizations of the Western Hemisphere,
and the Semitic Museum featuring
artifacts from excavations in the Middle East.
Harvard
has been highly ranked by many university
rankings. In particular, it has consistently topped the Academic
Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) since 2003, and the THE World Reputation Rankings since
2011, when the first time such league tables were published. When the QS
and Times were published in partnership as the THE-QS World University
Rankingsduring 2004-2009,
Harvard had also been regarded the first in every year. The University's
undergraduate program has been continuously among the top two in the U.S.
News & World Report.] In 2012, Harvard topped theUniversity Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP). It was ranked 8th on the 2013-2014 PayScale College Salary Report and 14th on the 2013 PayScale College
Education Value Rankings.]From a poll done by The Princeton Review, Harvard is the second most commonly named
"dream college", both for students and parents in 2013, and was the first nominated by parents
in 2009
College/school
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Year founded
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1636
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1782
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1816
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1817
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1867
|
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1872
|
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1908
|
|
1910
|
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1914
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1920
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1922
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1936
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2007
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