Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH is the smallest of the eight Ivy League schools. Founded in 1769 to teach Native Americans, as well as Europeans, it established one of the first Native American programs in the nation. Today nearly 40% of undergraduates are of color and nearly 10% come from outside the U.S. Dartmouth has graduated nearly 1,000 Native-Americans, more than all the other Ivies combined. Students adhere to Dartmouth’s D-Plan. Semesters are broken into four ten-week terms that allow undergraduates to spend at least one semester interning, studying abroad or doing service domestically or internationally. Dartmouth has nearly 50 undergraduate areas of study and four graduate programs including the Geisel School of Medicine, named in honor of Dartmouth alum and generous donor Theodor Geisel, giving a little more resonance to the prefix in his pen name, Dr. Seuss. Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering has student exchange programs in Thailand, Denmark, Germany and Hong Kong. The most popular majors are economics, government, and computer science. Sixty percent of students take advantage of more than 40 study abroad programs. Dartmouth has more than 350 clubs and student organizations with 60% of students participating in 27 Greek chapters. The Dartmouth Big Green has 35 varsity teams that compete in the NCAA’s Division I. Dartmouth’s endowment of nearly $5 billion ranks it among the richest 25 schools in the nation. Notable Dartmouth alumni include poet Robert Frost, Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes, Mr. Rogers’ Fred Rogers and actress and comedian Mindy Kaling, who gave the 2018 commencement speech.