Harvard University Trivia Quiz

Answer: Veritas

"Veritas" means "truth" in Latin, a pursuit to which all Harvard students are devoted (at least in principle). "Mens et Manus" (Mind and Hand) belongs to MIT, while "Lux et Veritas" (Light and Truth) is but one of many examples of Yale emulating Harvard! "E Pluribus Unum" (Out of Many One) is, of course, the motto of the United States.

Answer: Lawrence H. Summers

President Summers is the 27th man to hold the position, which he assumed in 2001. He graduated with a PhD from Harvard in 1982, returning a year later to become one of Harvard's youngest professors. More recently, Summers served as Bill Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury during the later part of Clinton's second administration. Summers also holds the distinction of being the first Jewish president of Harvard.

Answer: William Jefferson Clinton

Seven U.S. presidents have graced Harvard's halls: John Adams, John Qunicy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes (Law), Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and George Walker Bush (Business). Clinton went to college at Georgetown, spent some time at Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship, and then proceeded to earn a law degree at Yale.

Answer: Revere

Modeled after the housing system at Cambridge and Oxford, Harvard boasts twelve residential houses (or thirteen, if you include Dudley). 98% of the College's sophomores, juniors and seniors reside in these elegant, self-contained communities. Every house contains a dining hall, several common rooms (replete with grand pianos), and exercise/athletic facilities; some are even home to lavish courtyards, artistic facilities, BBQ grills and theaters.

The houses, in alphabetical order, are Adams, Cabot, Currier, Dunster, Eliot, Kirkland, Leverett, Lowell, Mather, Pforzheimer, Quincy, and Winthrop.

Answer: In Harvard Yard

In an attempt to place the College's newcomers at the center of campus life, Harvard places most of its freshmen in the historic Harvard Yard. A number of the Yard dormitories are among Harvard's oldest buildings. The Yard is also home to the massive Widener Library, the beautiful Memorial Church, and University Hall, Harvard's administrative epicenter.

The Yard dormitories include Wigglesworth, Holworthy, Mower, Lionel, Grays, Straus, Thayer, Canaday, Weld, Hollis, Stoughton and Matthews. Other freshman dormitories include Apley Court, Greenough, Hurlbut, and Pennypacker.

Answer: Harvard Medical School

The Medical School was established in 1782 with only three faculty and graduated only two students in its inaugural class of 1788! It is the third oldest medical school in the country, behind U Penn's and Columbia's. Its campus is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, where many students go on to intern at local hospitals such as Massachusetts General (MGH), Brigham and Women's and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Some notable graduates include William James, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., and Michael Crichton.

Answer: Tufts University

The Ivy League schools are among the oldest and most prestigious in the country. They are all located in the Northeast and include Brown (RI), Columbia (NY), Cornell (NY), Dartmouth (NH), Harvard (MA), Princeton (NJ), the University of Pennsylvania (PA), and Yale (CT).

Although not a member of the Ivy League, Tufts, located between Medford and Somerville, MA, is also among the nation's finest institutions of higher learning.

Answer: Economics

Some interestings tidbits: Harvard's introductory economics course, popularly known as "Ec 10," was taught by Professor Martin Feldstein, the late President Reagan's chief economic adviser during the early 1980s. The Biology Department recently mourned the loss of Stephen Jay Gould, the evolutionary biologist widely considered to be the intellectual successor to Charles Darwin. Poets T.S. Eliot and e.e. cummings were among those who got their starts in the Department of English and American Literature and Language. What used to be the Graduate School of Public Administration was renamed in the 1960s after the late President Kennedy.

Answer: It housed George Washington and members of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.

Indeed, during the Siege of Boston in 1775-1776, Wadsworth House served General Washington's command center; many of his troops took up residence in other Yard locales such as Massachusetts and Harvard Halls. What's more, Washington assumed command of the Continental Army a few hundred yards northwest of Harvard Yard in July of 1775 (check out the majestic monument in Cambridge Commons if you're ever in the area)!

Contrary to popular belief, John Harvard was NOT the founder of the College, merely a major benefactor who bequeathed much of his library to the fledgling institution two years after its founding (in 1636). While most of the University is located in Cambridge, the Medical School is situated in Boston proper and the Business School is based in Allston, MA, a neighborhood of Boston. Harvard maintains other facilities outside of the Boston area (for example, the Oak Ridge Observatory in Harvard, MA). As of 2007, the College no longer offers an early admissions option of any kind.

Answer: college.harvard.edu

All undergraduate email addresses end like this.

FAS stands for the "Faculty of Arts and Sciences," to which Harvard College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences belong.