Harvard Club of New York City

The Harvard Club of New York City is an alumni club founded in 1865 and housed since 1894 in a neo-Georgian building on West 44th Street designed by Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead & White, extended in 1905, 1915 and 2003. Eligibility is tied to a Harvard affiliation: degree recipients including honorary degrees, current or former faculty, fellows, officers and University appointment holders of at least one full academic year, current or former University-wide board and committee members, and former full-time students who spent at least one full academic year in good standing in a Harvard degree programme. Holders of certificates from Harvard programmes who meet none of those tests are explicitly ineligible. Unusually for a club of this age, the full dues schedule is published: annual dues run from $172 to $2,864 depending on category, and the entrance fee equals one full year of dues subject to a $250 minimum. The clubhouse has four dining venues, guest rooms, work and meeting rooms, a library, and a fitness centre and squash facility available for an extra fee.

How it works

Membership is single-clubhouse. Applicants apply online, their Harvard affiliation is verified, and they are contacted with membership details in roughly three weeks. Dues are billed for the fiscal year ending 30 June, prorated at the start and thereafter payable quarterly, half-yearly or annually; the entrance fee may be paid in full or in three instalments over two years. Members may bring guests and may issue guest passes allowing a non-member to use the club twice a year. Athletic membership is a separate application and fee. The club maintains a reciprocal network of private clubs worldwide, from the Oxford and Cambridge Club and Royal Automobile Club in London to the Union League Club of Chicago, the American Club Hong Kong and the Country Club Johannesburg; reciprocal visitors are admitted on a letter of introduction.

Typical member

Members are Harvard-affiliated by degree, faculty appointment or University service, plus spouses and life partners admitted in reduced-rate categories. Dues bands are set by years since undergraduate degree and by whether the member lives or works in New York City, the tri-state area, the eastern states, or further afield.

The published dues table is the most useful thing about this club for anyone comparing city clubs, and it shows how alumni clubs price: a recent graduate living outside the north-east pays $172 a year, while a New York resident more than ten years out pays $2,864, with an entrance fee equal to one year's dues on top. That is an order of magnitude below the fees reported at unaffiliated city clubs. The trade-off is that eligibility is closed -- there is no route in without a Harvard degree, appointment or University service, and Harvard certificate programmes do not qualify, a point the club states explicitly because it is asked often. Fitness and squash are a separate paid membership, so the headline dues understate the cost for members who want the athletic facilities. Membership size is not published.

Editorial analysis by Peer Group Guide editors. It is separated from the record above and follows the editorial policy.