Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, has announced that, with a $40 million gift from a donor who wishes to remain anonymous, it is expanding its longstanding need-blind admissions policy to include international students.

The single largest scholarship gift in Dartmouth’s 253-year history caps the college’s $90 million fundraising campaign and will enable Dartmouth to offer need-blind admissions to all undergraduate applicants while meeting 100 percent of demonstrated need regardless of citizenship, effective immediately for the Class of 2026. More than 440 alumni and parents on six continents contributed to the campaign.

Over the last five years, the pool of international applicants to Dartmouth has increased by 79 percent, from 3,555 to 6,373, and the number of enrolled international students has grown from 8 percent in the class that enrolled in 2016 to 14 percent of the current first-year class. Students from eighty-five nations currently receive scholarship aid.

“In a time when many of humankind’s most difficult challenges know no borders, we are proud to be a magnet for undergraduate talent regardless of citizenship and regardless of a student’s ability to pay,” said Dartmouth president Philip J. Hanlon. “On behalf of the international students who apply to Dartmouth today—and who will lead in the world tomorrow—I want to thank the incredibly generous lead donor and everyone who has enabled us to adopt universal need-blind admissions.”

(Photo credit: Robert Gill/Dartmouth)