Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. had recently been made Dean of the school and initially considered accepting her application.

He was heavily criticized by the all-male student body[4] as well as the university overseers and other faculty members, and she was asked to withdraw her application.

This class of women was admitted due to the decreased amount of qualified male applicants as a result of World War II.

One New York Times article in 1858 criticized her for being "one of the dozen women in the United States who pine because Nature did not make them men.

"[8] Hunt was a vocal advocate for the right of women to both learn and practice medicine and, more generally, to be educated and seek professions.

In 1860, Hunt celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of her medical practice with a party of 1500 guests, including three generations of her patients.

[2] Her grave is marked by a statue of the Greek goddess of health, Hygeia, carved by the African American sculptor Edmonia Lewis.

The first volume of History of Woman Suffrage, published in 1881, states, “THESE VOLUMES ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO THE Memory of Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, Lucretia Mott, Harriet Martineau, Lydia Maria Child, Margaret Fuller, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, Josephine S. Griffing, Martha C. Wright, Harriot K. Hunt, M.D., Mariana W. Johnson, Alice and Phebe Carey, Ann Preston, M.D., Lydia Mott, Eliza W. Farnham, Lydia F. Fowler, M.D., Paulina Wright Davis, Whose Earnest Lives and Fearless Words, in Demanding Political Rights for Women, have been, in the Preparation of these Pages, a Constant Inspiration TO The Editors”.