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Georgetown University was founded on January 23, 1789. It is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher education in the United States. The university was established by John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States.

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The Founding of Georgetown Anchor
The Founding of Georgetown

Georgetown University is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher learning in the United States. John Carroll's founding of Georgetown College coincides with the birth of our nation.
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Beginnings Anchor
Beginnings

In 1789, Carroll secured the deed to 60 acres of land on a hilltop overlooking the village of Georgetown. He was appointed Archbishop of Baltimore in 1808.

Classes began in 1792. Within the first year, attendance grew to more than 40 students - some as far away as the West Indies. In 1817, the school awarded its first two bachelor's degrees.
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Blue and Gray Anchor
Blue and Gray

The Civil War (1861-1865) nearly closed Georgetown, as the student body dropped from 313 to 17 between 1859 and 1861. A total of 1,141 students and alumni enlisted in the war, serving in both the Union and Confederate forces.

After the Second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia, in 1862, several campus buildings were turned into a temporary hospital. To celebrate the end of the Civil War, Georgetown students selected the colors blue (Union) and gray (Confederate) as the school's official colors in 1876.
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Expanding Education Anchor
Expanding Education

Georgetown established the School of Medicine in 1851 and the Law School in 1870. Patrick F. Healy, S.J., the university's president between 1873 and 1882, was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. and the first to head a major U.S. university. Healy dramatically reformed the university's curriculum with a new emphasis on history and the natural sciences and started construction on the Flemish Romanesque-style Healy Hall in 1877.

Joseph Havens Richards, S.J., president from 1888 to 1898, established graduate courses in the arts and sciences and built new facilities for the law and medical schools. The university's expansion continued into the 20th century, with the opening of the School of Dentistry in 1901, School of Nursing in 1903 and the School of Foreign Service in 1919 under the direction of Edmund Walsh, S.J. The School of Dentistry closed in 1990.
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War and Peace Anchor
War and Peace

As the new decade of post-war peace and prosperity took off in the early 1920s, Georgetown mirrored the nation's period of growth prompting the construction of New North, Copley Hall, White-Gravenor Building and the Medical and Dental Building. By 1930, enrollment had nearly doubled, reaching 2,600.

The Great Depression was a period of great consolidation for Georgetown as enrollment fell below 2,000. Despite a time of economic hardship, President Arthur O'Leary, S.J., formally organized the Graduate School in the 1930s, offering programs in mathematics, the natural sciences, economics, history and government.

During World War II, the U.S. War Department designated Georgetown as one of a select number of universities to house the Army Specialized Training Program. More than 75 percent of students enrolled in the 1943-44 academic year were military servicemen. During the 1944-45 academic year, women were allowed to enroll in the School of Foreign Service.
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Post-War Era Anchor
Post-War Era

The years after World War II saw another increase in enrollment and expansion of the university. Under the leadership of Edward Bunn, S.J. (1952-1964), Georgetown created the School of Business Administration in 1957, an outgrowth of the School of Foreign Service. Bunn is also responsible for creating the School for Summer and Continuing Education, now the School for Continuing Studies, in the 1950s.

Across the nation, the 1960s were shaped by the emergence of revolutionary ideas and social upheaval. Georgetown students were on campus when the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy took place. The women's movement began to take hold, and women were accepted into the College for the first time in 1969.

Students demonstrated against the Vietnam War in the 1970s, causing some disruptions to classes and campus life. By the end of the decade, most of the anger and discontent had been redirected into positive social action. Students started an annual tradition of spending their spring break helping underprivileged communities outside of Washington, DC, a program that Georgetown students continue to take part in.
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Tremendous Growth Anchor
Tremendous Growth

The 1980s were a time of tremendous growth on campus with the completion of Yates Field House and the opening of the Bunn Intercultural Center, new residence halls and the $51 million Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Center for students.

During the university's bicentennial year (1988-89), U.S. President Ronald Reagan provided the opening address to kick off the yearlong celebration, the culmination of which included a reunion ball with over 3,500 guests at DC's Union Station. The 1980s also began a "golden age" in two traditional sports at Georgetown - basketball and track. Under coaches John Thompson Jr. and Frank Gagliano, basketball and track enjoyed unprecedented periods of success from the early 1980s well into the 1990s.
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Embracing Diversity Anchor
Embracing Diversity

Under the leadership of Rev. Timothy Healy, S.J., (1976-1989) and Rev. Leo O'Donovan, S.J.,(1989-2001) Georgetown saw significant increases in the diversity of its students and faculty, and the number of faculty positions as it grew from a regional school to one of national prominence. Women also greatly increased their numbers within the faculty during the 1990s - making up nearly 40 percent by 2001. O'Donovan also oversaw the restructuring of the Medical Center and the separation of the hospital from the medical school. In 2001, John J. DeGioia became Georgetown's 48th and first lay president.
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Georgetown Today Anchor
Georgetown Today

Georgetown has grown to be a major international research university with nine schools, an affiliated hospital and many highly ranked academic programs. Today, the university has more than 12,000 undergraduate and graduate students who take classes at five locations: Main Campus, Medical Center, Law Center, School of Continuing Studies and the university's Georgetown Qatar campus.
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The Founding of Georgetown Anchor The Founding of Georgetown Georgetown University is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher learning in the United States. John Carroll's founding of Georgetown College coincides with the birth of our nation.

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Harvard University was founded on September 8, 1636. It is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States, established by a vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The university was named after its first benefactor, John Harvard, who left his library and half of his estate to the institution upon his death in 1638.

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Explore nearly four centuries of history

Harvard is perhaps best-known because of its enduring history of innovation in education. But even die-hard Harvard buffs are not likely to know all of these Harvard firsts and historical snippets.

1600s: Our Early Origins

1700s: Harvard and the American Revolution

1800s: A Century of Growth

1900s: A Century of Progress

2000s: Rapid Evolution and Breakthrough Discovery

1600s: Our Early Origins

1600s

1607: John Harvard, the College’s future namesake and first benefactor, was baptized at St. Saviour’s Church (now Southwark Cathedral), London.

1635: John Harvard received his M.A. from Cambridge University, England.

1636: First College in American colonies founded. The “Great and General Court of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England” approves £400 for the establishment of “a schoale or colledge” later to be called “Harvard.”

1637: The Great and General Court orders the “colledge” established one year earlier to be located at Newetowne (renamed “Cambrige” in 1638).

1637 (or early 1638)

“College Yard” purchased

The Overseers purchased the College’s first piece of real estate: a house and an acre of land from Goodman Peyntree. Located on the southern edge of “Cow-yard Row” and soon distinguished as the “College Yard,” this tract became the nucleus of present-day Harvard Yard and remains at the southern end of the Old Yard (the area west of Thayer, University, and Weld halls).

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

1600s (continued)

1638: John Harvard wills his library (400 books) and half his estate to the College.

1639: In recognition of John Harvard’s bequest, the Great and General Court orders “that the colledge agreed upon formerly to bee built at Cambridg shalbee called Harvard Colledge.”

1640: Reverend Henry Dunster is appointed first president of Harvard.

1642: First Harvard Commencement with nine graduates.

1649: The Town of Cambridge and President Henry Dunster give Harvard the “College Farm” at Billerica, Mass., which paid annual rent to the College until the farm was sold in 1775.

1650

Harvard granted Charter

Drafted by Henry Dunster, the Charter of 1650 called for the Harvard Corporation to consist of seven individuals: the President, five Fellows, and a Treasurer. The Charter named the Corporation as the “President and Fellowes of Harvard College” and transferred to them, in “perpetual succession,” the duties of managing the College.

The first changes to the Corporation’s structure since 1650 were implemented in 2010. These include an expansion of the number of Fellows, the establishment of terms of service for Fellows, and the creation of standing committees.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

1600s (continued)

1653: John Sassamon, a Massachusett Indian, became the first known Native American to study at Harvard (probably for a term or so). A disciple of Indian Bible translator John Eliot, Sassamon later became a scribe and interpreter to Wampanoag Chief Metacom (a.k.a. Metacomet, Pometacom, King Philip). In 1675, Sassamon was murdered as an English informant, touching off King Philip’s War, New England’s most devastating conflict between Natives and newcomers.

1692: Increase Mather awarded Harvard’s first Doctor of Divinity degree.

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1700s: Harvard and the American Revolution

1755

John Adams graduates

John Adams, future U.S. president, graduates. Before 1773, the graduates of Harvard were arranged in a hierarchy not of merit but “according to the dignity of birth, or to the rank of [their] parents.” By this rather undemocratic standard, Adams graduated 14th in a class of 24.

Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

1700s (continued)

1764: Original Harvard Hall burns, destroying some 5,000 volumes and all but one of John Harvard’s books.

1775: Continental soldiers are quartered in Harvard buildings.

1776: Eight Harvard alumni sign the Declaration of Independence.

1780: The Massachusetts Constitution went into effect and officially recognized Harvard as a university. The first medical instruction given to Harvard students in 1781 and the founding of the Medical School in 1782 made it a university in fact as well as name.

1781: Oldest continuous chapter of Phi Beta Kappa formed at Harvard.

1782: Twenty-nine-year-old John Warren was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the Medical School. During the previous year while head of the army hospital in Boston, he had given Harvard students their first formal medical instruction. Benjamin Waterhouse was named to a second Medical School professorship, in the “Theory and Practice of Physic.”

1783: With high ceremony, Harvard Medical School officially opened as the “Medical Institution of Harvard University.” Its first home was the ever-versatile Holden Chapel.

1787: John Quincy Adams, future U.S. president, graduates.

1791: A writer in the Boston press accused Harvard of poisoning students’ minds with Edward Gibbon’s monumental “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” (1776-88). President Joseph Willard replied that far from even considering Gibbon, the College used a text by French historian Abbé Millot. Nathaniel Ames, who left Harvard around 1812, recalled Millot’s as “the most utterly worthless and contemptible work of that kind or any other extant.”

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1800s: A Century of Growth

1800s

1810: John Thornton Kirkland begins 18-year presidency.

1815: University Hall is completed.

1816: The Divinity School is established.

1817: Harvard Law School is established.

1829: Josiah Quincy begins his 16-year presidency.

1832: Dane Hall, the Law School’s first new building, was formally dedicated in Harvard Yard and served for more than half a century thereafter.

1836: Harvard Bicentennial.

1836: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow appointed professor.

1837: Ralph Waldo Emerson ’21 delivers Phi Beta Kappa oration.

1839

Harvard Observatory is founded

Pictured: One of the Plate Stacks at the Harvard College Observatory.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

1800s (continued)

1845: Rutherford B. Hayes, future U.S. president, graduates from the Law School.

1846: John Collins Warren, Medical School professor, conducts first public demonstration of ether as surgical anesthetic.

1849: Dr. George Parkman disappeared at the Medical School in one of the most famous murder cases in Harvard history. Earlier, Parkman had lent money to colleague Dr. John White Webster. To secure the loan, Webster gave Parkman a mortgage on his personal property, including a valuable collection of minerals. When Parkman learned that Webster had backed another loan with the same collection, he began relentlessly pursuing Webster to collect the debt. A week after the disappearance, a suspicious janitor broke through a brick vault below Webster’s lab and found human body parts, which the authorities soon discovered all around the lab. Found guilty of first-degree murder, Webster belatedly confessed and appealed for clemency, but was hanged on Aug. 30, 1850. Parkman’s widow led a fund drive to support Webster’s wife and children.

1852: Harvard wins first intercollegiate sports event, a boat race against Yale on Lake Winnipesaukee.

1839

Henry David Thoreau ’37 publishes Walden

Pictured: Daniel Ricketson’s portrait of Henry David Thoreau featured in a Houghton Library exhibition.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

1800s (continued)

1855: Holworthy Hall gets first gas lights in the Yard.

1862: The Overseers confirmed the Rev. Thomas Hill, Class of 1843, as Harvard’s 20th President. His brief tenure brought higher admissions standards, a series of public “University Lectures” (est. 1863) by distinguished Harvard and non-Harvard scholars that paved the way for the “Graduate School of Arts and Sciences” and University Extension, and progress toward a system of elective courses. Hill also conducted nationwide searches for new faculty appointees.

1865: Election of Overseers placed in the hands of alumni, severing legal ties with the Commonwealth.

1867: The Harvard Dental School made its first appointments: Daniel Harwood, professor of dental pathology and therapeutics; and Nathan Cooley Keep, professor of mechanical dentistry.

1869: At the meetinghouse of First Church, Unitarian, Charles William Eliot was formally installed as Harvard’s 21st President. From the outset, Eliot’s 105-minute address delineated his broad educational purposes: “The endless controversies whether language, philosophy, mathematics, or science supplies the best mental training, whether general education should be chiefly literary or chiefly scientific, have no practical lesson for us to-day. This University recognizes no real antagonism between literature and science, and consents to no such narrow alternatives as mathematics or classics, science or metaphysics. We would have them all, and at their best.”

1870: The Rev. Phillips Brooks laid the cornerstone of Memorial Hall.

1872: Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is founded.

1872: Arnold Arboretum is established.

1873: Charles Sprague Sargent officially began a 54-year term as first director of the Arnold Arboretum. Sargent soon enlisted the aid of pioneering landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted – then busy designing the Boston park system – to help him lay out the grounds. “Olmsted immediately grasped the idea that an arboretum where the public could see varied plantations of rare and exotic trees and shrubs skilfully [sic] selected, artistically arranged, and grown under scientific oversight, would not only be an appropriate feature in the park system [now known as Boston’s “Emerald Necklace”] but might well become its culminating attraction,” Benjamin Lincoln Robinson, the Asa Gray Professor of Systematic Botany, wrote in the late 1920s. Nonetheless, the Arboretum proved a hard sell, Robinson noted. “Neither the City [of Boston] nor the Harvard Corporation welcomed the idea. The press was indifferent, and the public apathetic. Nine years of persistent effort were required before it was possible to draft a plan of procedure acceptable both to the City and to the University and to secure its approval by the General Court of Massachusetts.”

1874: Department of Fine Arts is established.

1875

The Harvard-Yale football game

New Haven, Conn., hosted the first Harvard-Yale football game, which Harvard won, to the delight of some 150 student boosters from Cambridge.

1800s (continued)

1879: The Harvard Annex, later known as Radcliffe College, opens with 27 female students.

1880: Theodore Roosevelt makes Phi Beta Kappa.

1886: 250th anniversary celebrated with more than 2,500 alumni and friends with President Grover Cleveland in attendance.

1890: Land given by Major Henry Lee Higginson ’55 dedicated as Soldiers Field, honoring alumni who died in the Civil War.

1894: Radcliffe College is incorporated.

1896: Fogg Art Museum opens.

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1900s: A Century of Progress

1900s

1901: First course offered in landscape architecture and city planning.

1903: Franklin D. Roosevelt elected president of the Harvard Crimson.

1903: Country’s first concrete football stadium is built.

1904: FDR graduates.

1908: With 59 students, the Graduate School of Business Administration formally opened as a Graduate Department of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Through this initial connection to established departments, President Eliot and Dean Edwin Francis Gay hoped to get the newcomer off to a well-supported start. Other U.S. universities began offering business training as early as 1886, but the course of study was overwhelmingly undergraduate. In seeking to establish business as a profession, Harvard Business School became the country’s first business program limited to college graduates. By the end of the first academic year, the School had 80 students from 14 colleges and 12 states.

1909: Abbott Lawrence Lowell begins his 24-year presidency.

1910: President Lowell establishes Commission on Extension Courses, now the Harvard Extension School.

1910: Theodore Roosevelt, Class of 1880, served as the 34th president of the Harvard Alumni Association (est. 1840).

1913: School of Public Health is established.

1913: Harvard University Press is established.

1914: Professor Theodore William Richards wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry for determination of atomic weights; he is the first of 50 Harvard Nobel laureates.

1914: Henry Cabot Lodge, Class of 1871, served as the 38th president of the Harvard Alumni Association (est. 1840).

1915

Widener Library opens

Pictured: Widener Library 105 years later.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

1900s (continued)

1920: The College Library contained about 1,127,500 volumes.

1920: The Business School issued Marketing Problems, its first case book, developed by Marketing Professor Melvin Thomas Copeland.

1920: Graduate School of Education is established.

1924: The Harvard-Boston (Egyptian) Expedition began excavation of the royal cemetery of King Cheops (Khufu) near the Great Pyramid and soon identified the tombs of Prince Kawa’ab (Cheops’s eldest son), four other princes, Princess Meresankh II, and two pyramid priests.

1926: Samuel Eliot Morison is appointed official historian for Tercentenary.

1928: First “iron lung” is devised by two doctors, Philip Drinker and Louis Agassiz Shaw, Jr., at the School of Public Health.

1930: The House Plan is established with the opening of Dunster House and Lowell House.

1933: James Bryant Conant begins his 20-year presidency.

1936: Harvard’s Tercentenary Celebration with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in attendance.

1936: Graduate School of Design is established.

1936: Graduate School of Public Administration is established.

1939

Walter Gropius becomes head of architecture at Graduate School of Design

Pictured: Portrait of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius with Joan Miro mural at Harvard’s Graduate Center.

© President and Fellows of Harvard College

1900s (continued)

1940: John F. Kennedy graduates.

1943: Two hundred Army Quartermaster officers arrived at the Business School for a three-month intensive course in business methods. They formed a new unit of lieutenants and captains known as the Army Supply Officers’ Training School, a counterpart to the Navy Supply Corps School.

1943: The Harvard Alumni Bulletin tally of Harvard men in active military service equaled “the mythical 10,000 men of Harvard.” Seventy-eight Harvard men had been killed in the line of duty, 20 were missing in action, and another 20 were prisoners of war.

1944

IBM Mark I computer begins operation at Harvard

Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer

1900s (continued)

1945: Publication of President Conant’s “General Education in a Free Society”; its recommendation will have wide influence.

1945: At the Kaiser Shipyard in Richmond, Calif., the 10,800-ton SS Harvard Victory was launched as the first of a new series of U.S. Maritime Commission ships named after U.S. educational institutions. The Harvard Corporation later voted to give the ship a library of about 140 volumes selected by the American Merchant Marine Library Association. A simple plaque acknowledged the University’s gift.

1947: General George C. Marshall receives honorary degree: announces “Marshall Plan” at commencement.

1953: Nathan M. Pusey begins his 18-year presidency.

1955

Helen Keller is the first woman to receive a Harvard honorary degree

1900s (continued)

1956: Pusey announces major fund drive, the Program for Harvard College.

1956: Memorial Hall tower burns down.

1959: Fidel Castro is guest of Law School Forum.

1960: Mary I. Bunting establishes Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study.

1960: Loeb Drama Center opens.

1963: Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, designed by Le Corbusier, opens.

1968: Kennedy School of Government begins its Public Policy Program.

1969: Harvard Community Health plan begins serving patients.

1969: Students strike and take over University Hall.

1970: Helen H. Gilbert elected first woman member of the Board of Overseers.

1971: Derek C. Bok begins his 20-year presidency.

1975: George W. Bush, future U.S. president, graduates from Business School.

1975: Equal admissions policy for male and female undergraduates is adopted.

1978: Core curriculum adopted.

1979: President Bok announces the $350 million Harvard Campaign, the largest capital campaign in Harvard’s history.

1980: American Repertory Theater comes to Harvard.

1982: Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, originally named the Semitic Museum and closed for 40 years, is reopened.

1983: Democratic presidential candidates debate nuclear arms control at the Kennedy School.

1984: Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Sackler Museums combine to become the Harvard Art Museums.

1986

Harvard celebrates its 350th anniversary

1900s (continued)

1991: Barack Obama, future U.S. president, graduates from the Law School.

1991: Neil Rudenstine is appointed president of Harvard.

1992: Harvard Kennedy School Forum hosts Mikhail Gorbachev.

1994: Harvard Business Publishing is founded.

1995: New cholera vaccine developed at Harvard Medical School.

1997: Mary Fasano became the oldest person ever to earn a Harvard degree when she graduated from the Extension School at the age of 89.

1998

Nelson Mandela awarded honorary degree at special convocation

Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

1900s (continued)

1999:  Radcliffe College merges with Harvard College.

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2000s:
Rapid Evolution and Breakthrough Discovery

2000s

2001: Lawrence Summers is appointed president.

2001: On the eve of the 350th Commencement, Harvard’s four living Presidents—past, present, and future—gather for a group portrait in Loeb House.

2002: Former Astronomy Prof. Riccardo Giacconi shares half the Nobel Prize in Physics for pioneering work in astrophysics that led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources.

2004: Harvard Financial Aid Initiative is launched.

2007: School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is established.

2007

Drew Gilpin Faust begins duties as Harvard’s 28th President

She is the first woman to hold the position.

Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer

2000s (continued)

2009: Unified University-wide calendar is launched.

2010: The Harvard Corporation expands from 7 to 13 members.

2010: Harvard University will welcome ROTC back to campus now that Congress has repealed a ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military.

2011: Harvard University awards degree to Native American student who died in 1665 just before Commencement.

2011

Harvard celebrates its 375th anniversary

Pictured: Cellist Yo-Yo Ma celebrating the 375th birthday of Harvard University.

Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer

2000s (continued)

2012: MIT and Harvard announce edX.

2012: Harvard announces plans to renew the University’s 12 undergraduate houses.

2012: Harvard releases first University-wide Sustainability Impact Report.

2013: President Drew Faust launches a $6.5 billion Harvard Campaign, the largest ever in higher education.

2013: Financial aid increases by $10M, bringing the total to a record $182 million.

2014: Kenneth Griffin ’89 makes $150 million gift to Harvard College, principally focused on supporting Harvard’s financial aid program.

2014: A $350 million gift comes from The Morningside Foundation, established by the family of the late T.H. Chan. The gift renames the Harvard School of Public Health to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

2015: John A. Paulson, M.B.A. ’80 made the largest gift in the University’s history, a $400 million endowment to support the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). The School is renamed the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

2018: Lawrence S. Bacow is appointed president of Harvard.

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Harvard is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States, established in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

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Georgetown University is known for its renowned School of Foreign Service and has outstanding programs in law, medicine, and business.

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Home Academic Life Areas of Study Areas of Study

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Harvard offers over 50 concentrations of study and is famous for its schools of law, medicine, business, and its College of Arts and Sciences.

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Browse the graduate and undergraduate degrees offered by Harvard's 13 Schools and learn more about admissions requirements, scholarship, and financial aid opportunities. We also offer executive education, certificate programs, and online courses for professional and lifelong learners.

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Browse the graduate and undergraduate degrees offered by Harvard's 13 Schools and learn more about admissions requirements, scholarship, and financial aid opportunities. We also offer executive education, certificate programs, and online courses for professional and lifelong learners.

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Georgetown is consistently ranked among the top universities in the United States, especially in social sciences and humanities.

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Georgetown University is a private institution that was founded in 1789. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 7,513, its setting is urban, and the campus size is 104 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Georgetown University's ranking in the 2021 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, #23. Its tuition and fees are $57,928.

Georgetown University is situated overlooking the Potomac River just a few minutes from downtown Washington. There are numerous traditional residence halls, and freshmen, sophomores and juniors are required to live on campus. Other students choose to live in the townhouses and apartments surrounding campus. Student organizations on campus include religious groups, media outlets and student government. The Georgetown Hoyas are part of the NCAA's Division I and are well known for their dominant men's basketball team, which maintains a fierce rivalry with Syracuse University and plays most home games at Capital One Arena, also home to the Washington Wizards. The popular chant "hoya saxa," a mix of ancient Greek and Latin that means "what rocks," gained prominence in 1920 and - contrary to popular belief - has nothing to do with Georgetown's mascot, Jack the Bulldog.

Georgetown comprises several undergraduate, graduate and professional schools, including the highly ranked Robert Emmett McDonough School of Business, Law Center, School of Medicine, School of Nursing and Health Studies and McCourt School of Public Policy. Georgetown's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service also offers well-regarded graduate programs. The neighborhood of Georgetown surrounding the university's campus houses high-end shopping, restaurants and bars. Notable alumni include former U.S. President Bill Clinton, actor Bradley Cooper, journalist Maria Shriver and Hall of Fame basketball player Patrick Ewing. The famous "Exorcist steps" used in the 1973 horror film "The Exorcist" are located just below Georgetown's campus.

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General Information

Religious Affiliation

Roman Catholic

Academic Calendar

Semester

2019 Endowment

$1.8 billion +

Georgetown University's 2021 Rankings

Georgetown University is ranked #23 in National Universities. Schools are ranked according to their performance across a set of widely accepted indicators of excellence.

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Georgetown University Alumni Starting Salaries

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Georgetown University Admissions

Georgetown University admissions is most selective with an acceptance rate of 14% and an early acceptance rate of 11.6%. Half the applicants admitted to Georgetown University have an SAT score between 1380 and 1550 or an ACT score of 31 and 35. However, one quarter of admitted applicants achieved scores above these ranges and one quarter scored below these ranges. The application deadline is Jan. 10 and the application fee at Georgetown University is $75.

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How Does Georgetown University Rank Among America's Best Colleges?

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Georgetown University is a private institution that was founded in 1789. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 7,513, its setting is urban, and the campus size is 104 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Georgetown University's ranking in the 2021 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, #23.

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Harvard is regularly ranked as the best or one of the best universities in the world, in multiple global rankings.

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Harvard University is a private institution that was founded in 1636. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 6,755, its setting is urban, and the campus size is 5,076 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Harvard University's ranking in the 2021 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, #2. Its tuition and fees are $54,002.

Located outside Boston in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University is made up of 13 schools and institutes, including the top-ranked Business School and Medical School and the highly ranked Graduate Education School, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Law School and John F. Kennedy School of Government. Harvard is a private, nonprofit institution that was founded in 1636 colonial America by the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The school was initially created to educate members of the clergy, according to the university's archives. Harvard is named after a Puritan minister - John Harvard - who, in 1638, left his 400-book library and half of his estate to the young school. The first commencement ceremony at Harvard, held in 1642, had nine graduates.

Harvard's extensive library system houses the oldest collection in the U.S. and the largest private collection in the world. Beyond books, Harvard's athletic teams compete in the Ivy League, with an annual football match-up against rival Yale. On-campus residential housing is an integral part of student life, where freshmen live at the center of campus and upperclassmen live in 12 undergraduate houses. Eight U.S. presidents graduated from Harvard, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Other notable alumni include Henry David Thoreau and Helen Keller. Harvard also has the largest endowment of any school in the world.

Harvard University's 2021 Rankings

Harvard University is ranked #2 in National Universities. Schools are ranked according to their performance across a set of widely accepted indicators of excellence.

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Harvard University Alumni Starting Salaries

Below are the median starting salaries by major for alumni of Harvard University.

Data provided by Last updated 2019.

Harvard University Photos

Harvard University Admissions

Harvard University admissions is most selective with an acceptance rate of 5%. Half the applicants admitted to Harvard University have an SAT score between 1460 and 1570 or an ACT score of 33 and 35. However, one quarter of admitted applicants achieved scores above these ranges and one quarter scored below these ranges. The application deadline is Jan. 1 and the application fee at Harvard University is $75.

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Will You Get Into Harvard University?

This free college acceptance calculator plots your test scores and GPA against other students' data to give you an idea of how you stack up as an applicant.

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How Does Harvard University Rank Among America's Best Colleges?

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Harvard University is a private institution that was founded in 1636. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 6,755, its setting is urban, and the campus size is 5,076 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Harvard University's ranking in the 2021 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, #2.

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Life in Georgetown is vibrant and diversified, with a wide range of clubs, student organizations, and cultural events.

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We are a community that's bursting with energy and ideas. You feel it in residences built around shared passions and our over 350 clubs and organizations. You see it in the way we own our many differences. Wherever you come from and wherever you're headed, there's a place for you at Georgetown.

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Embrace community living, and create, volunteer, compete, debate or worship. With 300 clubs and organizations, there's a place for you at Georgetown.

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Harvard offers a rich and diverse student life, with more than 450 clubs and organizations, as well as highlt¡y regarded cultural events and activities.

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From the moment first-year students walk into Harvard Yard until they graduate, they are surrounded by people dedicated to making Harvard "home."

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Professors at Georgetown are not only experts in their respective disciplines but also actively engaged in addressing societal challenges and promoting social justice. With a focus on educating the whole person, Georgetown's faculty members prioritize mentorship and individualized attention, fostering meaningful relationships with their students both inside and outside the classroom. Through their expertise and commitment to the university's Jesuit values, Georgetown professors inspire students to become ethical leaders and agents of change in their communities and beyond.

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Professors at Harvard are often leaders in their fields, known for groundbreaking research and innovative pedagogy. With a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration, Harvard's faculty members engage students in rigorous intellectual inquiry, challenging them to think critically and creatively. The university's commitment to fostering a vibrant academic community ensures that students have access to top-tier mentors who are dedicated to their intellectual and personal growth.