At a Glance
Dartmouth admits 6% of applicants.
What You'll Actually Pay
See what families at different income levels actually pay after aid.
What families actually pay, by income level
After grants and scholarships. Before loans. Public school prices shown at in-state rates.
Source: College Scorecard / IPEDS, 2024-25
Where the Sticker Price Goes
Based on average need-based grant. Actual cost varies by family income — see chart above.
Debt at Graduation
47.9%
receive need-based grant aid
$24,255
average debt at graduation
Dartmouth graduates carry an average of $24,255 in debt.
Merit Aid
Not reported by this school — some schools award aid based on need alone, without merit scholarships.
Getting In
Dartmouth admits 6% of applicants.
Dartmouth College's Early Decision applicants are admitted at more than 6x the rate of Regular Decision applicants — 21.6% vs 3.8%. Note: ED is binding — you commit to attending if admitted.
SAT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 69% of the class submitted
ACT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 33% of the class submitted
96% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
Dartmouth College rates your personal essay as Very Important — equal weight to your GPA. Don't underestimate it. Demonstrated interest is Considered — showing genuine engagement with this school may help your application.
Student Life
61.3% of Dartmouth classes have fewer than 20 students.
Share of undergraduate class sections at each size, from CDS Section I-3. More red = more large lectures.
At Dartmouth, 61.3% of your classes will have fewer than 20 students.
Class size data reflects all undergraduate sections including labs, seminars, and lectures. Large research universities often have smaller upper-division and graduate-level sections that improve the overall distribution. First and second-year students typically experience larger classes than these averages suggest.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section I-3 (class sizes)
8:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
From out of state (freshman class)
85%
Live on campus
85%
Men in fraternities
26%
Women in sororities
29%
Who Attends
Racial and ethnic breakdown of enrolled undergraduates, as reported in each school's Common Data Set. "Unknown / Other" includes students who did not report or selected "other."
Dartmouth's student body is 43.8% white.
Popular Majors
Will They Graduate?
Dartmouth graduates 78.5% of students in 4 years.
Graduating late means paying for extra semesters. The 6-year rate tells you who eventually finishes — the 4-year rate tells you what it actually costs.
Dartmouth graduates 78.5% of students in 4 years.
What finishing late actually costs
Based on each school's published cost of attendance. Public school costs shown at in-state rates.
Dartmouth
78.5%
4-yr grad rate
Extra year cost: $87,793
Graduation rate data from Common Data Set 2025–26, Fall 2018 cohort (most recent available). 4-year rate = students completing in 4 years or less. 6-year rate = students completing within 6 years.
95%
Overall 6-yr rate
92%
Pell recipient rate
There's a 3 point gap between overall and Pell Grant graduation rates. Worth asking the school about support resources.
Freshman Retention
98%
98% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Hanover.
Dartmouth sits on the Connecticut River in Hanover, a small New Hampshire town where the college is the town's economic and social center. Norwich, Vermont is a five-minute walk across the river, and the White Mountains and Green Mountains are both within reach. The nearest city of any size is a two-hour-plus drive south, so campus life is largely self-contained.
Notable Alumni
Nelson Rockefeller
41st Vice President of the United States and a four-term Governor of New York. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in economics.
Class of 1930
Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss)
Wrote and illustrated nearly 60 children's books under the pen name Dr. Seuss. He edited the campus humor magazine Jack-O-Lantern as an undergraduate, and Dartmouth's medical school now carries his and his wife's name.
Class of 1925
C. Everett Koop
Served as U.S. Surgeon General from 1982 to 1989, becoming one of the most recognized public health officials in American history. He majored in zoology.
Class of 1937
Shonda Rhimes
Created Grey's Anatomy, Scandal and Bridgerton, and built Shondaland into one of television's most prominent production companies. She majored in English and later gave Dartmouth's 2014 commencement address.
Class of 1991
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
The City
College town
Hanover, NH
Best For
Traditions
Homecoming Bonfire
The first-year class runs laps around a towering bonfire built on the Green, traditionally one lap per graduating year, while upperclassmen heckle from the sidelines — a tradition that traces back to celebratory bonfires in the 1890s and the run-around-the-fire custom that began in 1904.
Winter Carnival
Held every February since 1911, when the Dartmouth Outing Club's winter field day added social events and took the Winter Carnival name. It still centers on a student-built snow sculpture on the Green and a weekend of ski and snow events.
Green Key
The college's spring “big weekend,” tracing back to a dance organized by the sophomore Green Key Society in the 1920s. It has grown into a campus-wide weekend of concerts and outdoor gatherings marking the approach of the end of the year.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Hanover
Quechee Gorge and Woodstock, VT
About 30 minutesVermont's deepest gorge, cut by the Ottauquechee River, sits just outside the postcard Vermont town of Woodstock — the standard short trip out of Hanover.
Mount Moosilauke and the White Mountains
About 1 hourDartmouth owns and operates the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge at the base of the mountain, and the wider White Mountain National Forest is the Dartmouth Outing Club's home turf for hiking and skiing.
Boston
About 2 hoursThe nearest real city, and the standard trip for students who want a weekend somewhere bigger than the Upper Valley.
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Lebanon Municipal Airport (LEB)
About 10 minutes from campus
For international flights: Boston Logan International (BOS) — about 2 hours 15 minutes by road.
Pro sports nearby
- New Hampshire Fisher Cats MiLBAbout 1 hour 30 minutes away
- Boston Celtics NBAAbout 2 hours 15 minutes away
- Boston Red Sox MLBAbout 2 hours 15 minutes away
Career Proximity
Hanover has no corporate cluster of its own — the D-Plan's off-terms send Dartmouth students to Boston, New York and beyond for the internships a rural campus can't offer locally.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Goldman Sachs
- McKinsey & Company
- Bain & Company
- Amazon
- Dartmouth Health
Boston, about 2 hours south by road
Who Thrives Here
Dartmouth admits 6.0% of applicants overall and 21.6% through early decision, and requires the SAT or ACT — a score is part of the application here, not an option. It has the smallest undergraduate enrollment in the Ivy League: 4,715 students, 8 per faculty member, and 61.3% of classes under 20. The defining structure is the D-Plan: instead of two fixed semesters, Dartmouth runs a year-round trimester calendar and expects most students to spend one or more terms away from Hanover — studying abroad, on an internship, or simply off — rather than following four straight years on campus. Social life splits between Greek houses (26% of men, 29% of women) and the 85% of undergraduates in college housing. The aid holds up: 100% of demonstrated need is met, 47.9% of undergraduates receive need-based aid, and graduates who borrow leave owing $24,255 on average. The trade-off shows up in the timeline the D-Plan produces: only 78.5% graduate in four years, well behind the 95.0% who finish within six — a wider gap than most peer Ivies, and a direct consequence of a calendar built around leaving campus.