Dartmouth - Need Blind Policy

@Yood, congratulations on your Dartmouth acceptance. Getting in to Dartmouth as a International student is extremely difficult. As per Becky Munsterer Sabky's (12 year former Dartmouth admissions director) book Valdictorians at the Gate puts it "Dartmouth only accepts about 2% international students".

My question to you is why do you think that you didn't have your application evaluated on a need blind basis? On 1/17/22, Dartmouth received a $40 million anonymous gift to expand need blind admissions for International Students. That is probably why you were accepted this cycle versus other cycles if you think about it.

https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/dartmouth-receives-40-million-for-need-blind-international-admissions

Remember need blind has nothing to do with your financial aid package. It just means that your common app application to Dartmouth was evaluated without consideration for your ability to pay. In previous years where the admit spread between Int'l students was 4-8% difference, it primarily was because AOs at Dartmouth only admitted Int'l students if their families could pay for their children to attend. So in a windfall benefit to you, you were fortunate enough to have your Dartmouth application evaluated without AOs considering your families finances.

Since financial aid is a separate concept and Dartmouth meets 100% of financial need of their students regardless of citizenship, you will have received a financial aid package based on your submission of the CSS Profile and any other supplement forms Dartmouth required already.

So if you received grants and low interest loans versus someone who gets a full ride, it's because full rides are only given to admits whose family income is less than $65,000 USD as described on their website.

https://financialaid.dartmouth.edu/how-aid-works/how-much-help-will-i-get

Full tuition grants are given to admits whose family income is less than $125,000 USD.

So if your family income is more than $125,000 and/or your family has more than average assets (businesses, real estate, financial instruments, etc), you would not get a full tuition scholarship but something less. And the remainder would be made up by both institutional loans and private loans and your families contribution.

Good luck and congratulations. You are one of the lucky 🍀 ones to get into Dartmouth as an International student.

(I'm not sure there is any formal appeals process however I have definitely heard of other students who have received offers from other Ivys leveraging them against one another to improve their finaid package. So if Yale accepted you and your parent contribution is $10000 less per year, you can always contact the Dartmouth AO and ask them to consider matching the offer. To negotiate your package, you most likely need a acceptance/package from a school that is equivalent or better than Dartmouth, from the perspective of Dartmouth. I don't think a State college offer or an Non-US college offer would be helpful)