Where the Students Are

At each Commencement, Harvard confers 6,500 or so degrees, on everyone from College students who have navigated their undergraduate years to...

At each Commencement, Harvard confers 6,500 or so degrees, on everyone from College students who have navigated their undergraduate years to those who have mastered architecture, medicine, law, or business. But the Univeristy consists, famously, of separate “tubs” devoted to distinct kinds of teaching and research. As if one could not tell from the relative amount of noise the graduates make or the flurries of totems they wield in Tercentenary Theatre (toothbrushes, school books, sharks, condom balloons, currency), Harvard’s schools vary widely in enrollment. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, acting as College and Graduate School, accounts for about half of the University’s student body. Dental Medicine is the smallest school. Taken as a whole, the Extension School ranks right in the middle.

Illustrated chart by Stephen Anderson

Most popular

Trump Administration Sues Harvard over Civil Rights

The March 20 suit seeks to rescind research grants that were restored in an earlier court ruling.

Can We Disagree Better? A Harvard Professor Has Tips.

Kennedy School professor of public policy Julia Minson on how to improve political conversations

Inside Harvard’s Most Egalitarian School

The Extension School is open to everyone. Expect to work—hard.

Explore More From Current Issue

A close-up of a beetle on the textured surface of a cycad cone and cycad cones seen in infrared silhouette.

Research in Brief

Cutting-edge discoveries, distilled

Firefighters battling flames at a red building, surrounded by smoke and onlookers.

Yesterday’s News

How a book on fighting the “Devill World” survived Harvard’s historic fire.

Purple violet flower with vibrant petals surrounded by green foliage.

Bees and Flowers Are Falling Out of Sync

Scientists are revisiting an old way of thinking about extinction.