Instruction in engineering at Harvard began with the Lawrence Scientific School in 1847. The reorganizations that have since taken place reflect the attempt to make engineering a professional discipline as well as retain it as a field available for undergraduates. The Graduate School of Applied Science, established in 1906 under the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, replaced the Lawrence Scientific School and offered engineering, architecture, forestry, physics, chemistry, zoology and geology courses. The Graduate Schools of Applied Science superseded the Graduate School of Applied Science in 1912 and included the Schools of Engineering, Mining, Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Forestry, and Applied Biology (also known as the Bussey Institution). As a result of the 1914 cooperative agreement with M.I.T., the Faculty of the Graduate Schools of Applied Science was dissolved and instruction in the various branches of Engineering and in Mining and Metalurgy was undertaken in cooperation with M.I.T. The School of Architecture and the School of Landscape Architecture were placed under a Faculty of Architecture; the Bussey Institution was continued under its own faculty, and the School of Forestry was discontinued. A Supreme Judicial Court decision in 1917 dissolved the M.I.T. agreement.

The Harvard Engineering School was established with its own faculty in 1918, offering both graduate and undergraduate instruction. The Graduate and Undergraduate Schools of Engineering were created in 1932 although after 1935 undergraduate engineering students were registered in Harvard College. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences maintained a department or division of engineering sciences, apparently continuously from the time such divisions first were introduced into the Faculty in the 1890s. In 1946, this became the Division of Engineering Sciences and Applied Physics and was involved in both undergraduate and graduate instruction. The Graduate School of Engineering merged with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1949; the Division of Engineering Sciences was created, comprising the Department of Engineering and the Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Physics. The Division of Engineering Sciences became the Division of Applied Science in 1951 and the two departments were dissolved. In 1955 it was renamed the Division of Engineering and Applied Physics, and in 1977 became the Division of Applied Sciences.