The oldest university in the United States, Harvard was established in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony, and was named for its first benefactor, John Harvard of Charlestown, a young minister who upon his death in 1638, left his library and half his estate to the new institution. These days, there are about 1600 undergraduates per class and approximately 10,000 graduate students spread across the several campuses that house the main college and the various graduate schools.

The lingo is a little different there from at most colleges. Undergraduates live in 12 Houses (instead of dormitories), concentrate (instead of major), call teaching assistants teaching fellows, and have resident tutors (instead of resident advisors).

The undergraduate calendar does not start until late September, so the school is one of the last in the country to have first semester exams after Christmas, and the second semester ends in June.

Founded 1636 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University comprises the following schools:

Harvard College (what most people think of when they think Harvard)
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Business School
Graduate School of Design
Harvard Divinity School
Graduate School of Eduation
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard Law School
School of Public Health

According to the website (www.harvard.edu), there are 18,000 undergraduate and graduate students. They also mention: "Six presidents of the United States - John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Rutherford B. Hayes, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy - were graduates of Harvard. Its faculty have produced more than 30 Nobel laureates"

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