GSAS Fact Sheet

Profile

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) offers degree programs in 57 departments, divisions, and committees across all disciplines. In addition to these programs, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences recently approved a new a PhD in education, which will begin accepting applications in 2013–2014 for admission in fall 2014.

GSAS is the only school at Harvard to award the doctor of philosophy (PhD). It also awards the master of arts (AM), master of science (SM), master of engineering (ME), and master of forest science (MFS).

GSAS offerings include 16 interfaculty PhD programs, which bring the arts and sciences together with Harvard’s professional graduate schools. GSAS offers its PhD students the chance to complete a secondary field in one of 17 areas of study, including computational science and engineering, critical media practice, and science, technology, and society.

GSAS students seek to answer fundamental theoretical questions and discover new modes of thinking. In their roles as teachers at Harvard College, they engage and challenge some of the most talented undergraduate students in the world. And in their future careers, whether within or outside of academe, they become leading members of their communities, drawing upon the spirit of intellectual curiosity, scientific inquiry, and prudent skepticism that their work here instilled.

Facts

Fall 2012

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) is the only Harvard school to award the doctor of philosophy (PhD).

GSAS is composed of 57 degree-granting departments, divisions, and committees. It currently offers the PhD in 54 of those departments and divisions. It offers a terminal master’s degree in select subject areas.

Offerings include:

16 Interfaculty PhD Programs (jointly offered with Harvard’s professional graduate schools):
Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning
Biological Sciences in Dental Medicine
Biological Sciences in Public Health
Biophysics
Biostatistics
Business Economics
Chemical Biology
Division of Medical Sciences
Health Policy
Organizational Behavior
Political Economy and Government
Public Policy
Religion
Science, Technology, and Management (not admitting students in 2012–2013.)
Social Policy
Systems Biology

Graduate Seminars in General Education (contributing to the course offerings of Harvard’s new General Education undergraduate curriculum):
6 seminars offered 2011–2012

Forced to be Free: Americans as Occupiers by Andrew Gordon and Erez Manela
Just Institutions by Christopher Winship
Power and Protest: Teaching the 1960s in Global Perspective by Lisa McGirr
Science, Nature, and Gender by Sarah Richardson
Shakespeare’s Creative Development by Gordon Teskey\
Statistical Mathematics by Xiao-Li Meng and Joseph Blitzstein

85 (currently funded) Graduate Research Workshops

GSAS Research Workshops, funded by alumni through the Graduate School Fund, are ongoing working groups for graduate students and faculty to discuss emerging research and new publications.
View online here.

17 Secondary PhD Fields
African and African American Studies
Celtic Medieval Languages and Literatures
Classics
Comparative Literature
Computational Science and Engineering
Critical Media Practice
Film and Visual Studies
German
Historical Linguistics
History of American Civilization
Linguistic Theory
Medieval Studies
Mind, Brain, and Behavior
Music
Romance Languages and Literatures
Science, Technology, and Society
Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality

3 Interdisciplinary Graduate Consortia
Graduate Consortium in Energy and Environment
Graduate Consortium in Microbial Sciences
Graduate Consortium in Infectious Diseases

Enrollment Statistics (2011-2012)

4,131 registered degree candidates (3,967 PhD and 164 AM)
21 percent in the humanities
52 percent in the natural sciences
27 percent in the social sciences
45 percent women
33 percent international (Harvard’s largest international student population)
7 percent underrepresented minorities