When President Philip J. Hanlon ’77 last week announced that Dartmouth is expanding its longstanding need-blind admissions policy to include international students, the announcement included a video of five current students and recent graduates who illustrate the critical importance of the initiative.

The students—from Bangladesh, Brazil, Burundi, Canada, and England—discuss the role financial aid played in bringing some of them to Dartmouth and what global perspectives add to classrooms and campus life.

“A truly diverse community is really important if we are trying to cultivate global leaders,” says Sonia Qin ’19, who was born in Beijing, grew up in Ottawa, and is now a student at Yale Law School.

“Talking to other international students, it helped me to understand a lot about who I am and where I come from,” adds Sayuri Tais Miyamoto Magnabosco ’21, a King Scholar who grew up in Brazil and is now at Thayer School of Engineering.

She says, “Coming to Dartmouth has changed me in so many ways and opened my mind.”

The $40 million anonymous gift announced last week is helping Dartmouth dedicate $90 million to extend need-blind admissions to international students, making Dartmouth just one of six institutions of U.S. higher education to offer such aid to all undergraduates.

Applications from abroad have increased dramatically in recent years, and foreign citizens now represent 14% of the first-year class at Dartmouth.