Harvard University Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids
Harvard University
The university in 1740
Motto	Veritas
Motto in English	Truth
Type	Private
Established	1636
Endowment	US $40.9 billion
President	Lawrence Bacow
Academic staff	2,107
Administrative staff	2,497 non-medical 10,674 medical
Students	21,225
Undergraduates	7,181 total 6,655 College 526 Extension
Postgraduates	14,044
Location	Cambridge , Massachusetts , U.S.
Campus	Urban 210 acres (85 ha) (Main campus) 22 acres (8.9 ha) (Medical campus) 359 acres (145 ha) (Allston campus)
Newspaper	The Harvard Crimson
Colors	Crimson
Athletics	41 Varsity Teams Ivy League NCAA Division I
Nickname	Harvard Crimson
Website	harvard.edu

Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a member of the Ivy League. Harvard was started on September 8, 1636, and it is the oldest university in the United States. Harvard's current president is Lawrence Bacow. The school color is crimson, which is a dark red color.

Harvard is on the Charles River. Some students go to the Charles River for rowing. On the other side of the Charles River is the city of Boston. Boston's subway system has a stop at Harvard. Some of Harvard's graduate schools are in Boston, but most of Harvard's schools are in Cambridge. Together, these schools are Harvard University.

Harvard has many libraries like Widener Library. There are other facilities like skating rinks and the Malkin Athletic Center where students can swim and exercise.

Harvard is almost always ranked as one of the best universities in the world. Another famous school close to Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Eight Presidents of the United States have graduated from Harvard. Harvard has over $40 billion.

Notable alumni

George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States
Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft
Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States
John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States
Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States
Natalie Portman, Actress & filmmaker
Mark Zuckerberg, Founder & CEO of Facebook
Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States

Images for kids

The seal of the Harvard Corporation, found on Harvard diplomas. Christo et Ecclesiae ("For Christ and Church") is one of Harvard's several early mottoes.
Engraving of Harvard College by Paul Revere, 1767
John Harvard statue, Harvard Yard
Richard Rummell's 1906 watercolor landscape view, facing northeast.
Memorial Hall
Memorial Church
Harvard Medical School
University seal
Massachusetts Hall (1720), Harvard's oldest building
Harvard Yard
Widener Library anchors the Harvard Library system.
Tower at the University of Puerto Rico, showing (right) the emblem of Harvard—the oldest in the United States—and (left) that of National University of San Marcos, Lima—the oldest in the Americas
2nd President of the United States John Adams (AB, 1755; AM, 1758)
6th President of the United States John Quincy Adams (AB, 1787; AM, 1790)
Essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (AB, 1821)
Naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher Henry David Thoreau (AB, 1837)
19th President of the United States Rutherford B. Hayes (LLB, 1845)
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (AB, 1861, LLB)
Philosopher, logician, and mathematician Charles Sanders Peirce (AB, 1862, SB 1863)
26th President of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Theodore Roosevelt (AB, 1880)
Sociologist and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois (PhD, 1895)
32nd President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt (AB, 1903)
Author, political activist, and lecturer Helen Keller (AB, 1904, Radcliffe College)
Poet and Nobel laureate in literature T. S. Eliot (AB, 1909; AM, 1910)
Physicist and leader of Manhattan Project J. Robert Oppenheimer (AB, 1925)
Economist and Nobel laureate in economics Paul Samuelson (AM, 1936; PhD, 1941)
Musician and composer Leonard Bernstein (AB, 1939)
35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy (AB, 1940)
7th President of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson (LLM, 1968)
45th Vice President of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Al Gore (AB, 1969)
24th President of Liberia and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (MPA, 1971)
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (AB, 1971; JD, 1975)
11th Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto (AB, 1973, Radcliffe College)
14th Chair of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke (AB, 1975; AM, 1975)
43rd President of the United States George W. Bush (MBA, 1975)
17th Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts (AB, 1976; JD, 1979)
Founder of Microsoft and philanthropist Bill Gates (College, 1977; LLD hc, 2007)
8th Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon (MPA, 1984)
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Elena Kagan (JD, 1986)
Former First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama (JD, 1988)
Biochemist and Nobel laureate in chemistry Jennifer Doudna (PhD, 1989)
44th President of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama (JD, 1991)
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Ketanji Brown Jackson (JD, 1992)
Founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg (College, 2004; LLD hc, 2017)
Louis Agassiz
Danielle Allen
Alan Dershowitz
Paul Farmer
Jason Furman
John Kenneth Galbraith
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Asa Gray
Seamus Heaney
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
William James
Timothy Leary
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
James Russell Lowell
Greg Mankiw
Steven Pinker
Michael Porter
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
Amartya Sen
B. F. Skinner
Lawrence Summers
Cass Sunstein
Elizabeth Warren
Cornel West
E. O. Wilson
Shing-Tung Yau
Robert Reich

Harvard University facts for kids

Notable alumni

Images for kids

See also