This article is featured in the 2026 Freshman Special Issue.
The first weeks at Dartmouth involve a set of adjustments for any student: learning the rhythm of the quarter system, finding friends, deciphering campus traditions and becoming accustomed to living away from home. For international students, arriving from another country adds another set of adjustments. A class discussion may take place in a second language. Living on campus may be unfamiliar. College Greek life may bear little resemblance to social life at home. There are taxes to file, documents to keep track of and rules governing when a student can work, leave the country or return.
This year, those questions accompany students to Hanover amid an unusually uncertain period for international students in higher education. Under the second Trump administration, the Class of 2030 is entering Dartmouth in an immigration environment materially different from the one students encountered even two years ago.
The changes present a particular tension for Dartmouth, which has spent years making a global student body part of its institutional identity. Dartmouth committed to being need-blind for international applicants since the Class of 2026, according to the Admissions Office website. International students comprised approximately 15% of the Class of 2029, approximately consistent with the 14% for the Class of 2028. The College also offers immigration advisers, an International Student Experience Office and international student-specific orientation experiences to help international students transition to life at Dartmouth and in the United States.
But admission to Dartmouth does not confer the right to remain in the United States. Once international students arrive, their ability to study, work, travel home, pursue internships and, in some cases, complete their education depends partly on federal immigration policy — a system the College can help students navigate but does not control.
That divide, between the community Dartmouth can offer and the legal certainty it cannot, makes the ordinary difficulty of moving to another country feel heavier. Students interviewed for this article described immigration policy reaching into decisions about careers, travel, academics and political expression, while friendships and cultural communities helped make an unfamiliar place feel like their own.
The Dartmouth granted anonymity to two members of the Class of 2028 to allow them to speak candidly about their immigration status and the current political climate. They are identified in this article by the pseudonyms “Nadia” and “Mateo.”
For Nadia, who grew up in Pakistan, Dartmouth was her first extended experience abroad. She expected independence, but was less prepared for the paperwork and practical responsibilities that came with it.
“It’s figuring out taxes and so many other documents that you have to keep track of as an international student,” she said. “The responsibility that comes with it.”
Through cultural organizations, Nadia found opportunities to share parts of Pakistani culture with the broader Dartmouth community, including events where students involved in Pan-Asian programming prepared Pakistani food for the wider student body.
Mateo, who is from Peru, encountered other unfamiliarities. In Lima, he said, many university students continue living with their families and commute to class. His family is “still getting used to the idea that I live inside a college campus,” he said. Studying in English also changed the experience, even though he felt academically prepared for Dartmouth.
“If this whole thing was in Spanish, it would be completely different,” he said.
Finding people for whom explanation about language and culture was unnecessary eased the transition to life in the United States, Mateo said. Some of his closest friends are also international students from Latin America, and both he and Nadia said older international students have been important sources of guidance.
For example, when Nadia has questions about visas, she often begins by asking students who have already navigated the system.
“I trust their information,” she said.
The informal collaboration amongst international students has taken on greater significance as the rules themselves have shifted.
In April 2025, the federal government abruptly terminated the F-1 immigration statuses of two Dartmouth students, including computer science doctoral student Xiaotian Liu GR, without first notifying the College. Their statuses were later reinstated.
Days after the initial termination, Dartmouth’s Office of Visa and Immigration Services convened international students for an information session, during which an immigration attorney advised non-U.S. citizens to carry documents proving their identity and immigration status. OVIS director Susan Ellison also warned students about increased scrutiny at consulates and U.S. ports of entry.
The limits of the College’s control became apparent again last month. On Aug. 2, Customs and Border Protection denied Taha Tariq ’28, a British citizen, reentry into the United States as he returned to Dartmouth from Montreal. More than three weeks later, CBP declined to publicly explain why Tariq had been barred from returning. He remains in Canada as of Sept. 4. Dartmouth said it had connected Tariq with an immigration attorney and provided him with accommodations in Canada while continuing to support efforts to secure his return.
The situation underscores the limits of Dartmouth’s authority — the College may admit a student, house them, fund their education and expect them back for the next term, but it cannot guarantee that federal immigration authorities will allow them across the border.
Concerns about travel extend beyond individual cases. ISEO director Seun Olamosu wrote in an email statement that some students from countries subject to federal travel restrictions have questioned whether they should leave the United States at all. ISEO data from this summer showed that many international students who remained in Hanover during their off-term came from countries affected by travel restrictions, while others stayed because they were concerned about traveling in the current climate, Olamosu wrote.
Federal scrutiny has also extended to visas and employment. Visa applicants in F, M and J categories — which are for academic students, vocational students and exchange visitors, respectively — are now subject to expanded review of the applicant’s “online presence,” according to a State Department media note from June 2025, and federal officials have increased scrutiny of Curricular Practical Training, which permits some F-1 students to work in internships related to their studies, since an Aug. 12 memorandum. The College later told The Dartmouth that it did not plan to alter its undergraduate CPT program while it sought further clarification from federal officials.
For Mateo, who hopes to enter finance, anxiety over immigration status has become most apparent during recruiting. He said some positions available to international students in older Dartmouth classes no longer offer sponsorship for foreign workers in his class’s application cycle.
“There are a couple of opportunities, but they get increasingly more difficult each year,” he said.
Mateo ultimately secured an opportunity for next summer, but said the process showed him that professional planning could not be separated entirely from immigration status.
For Nadia, uncertainty has already affected her academic planning. She originally expected to complete her engineering degree in five years but now intends to finish in four.
“I honestly don’t even know what exactly is changing,” she said, referring to immigration policies. “It’s confusing and it’s so much that’s changing.”
The uncertainty has also altered how she imagines life after Dartmouth. She once envisioned pursuing graduate study and finding work in the United States. Now, she is considering other countries as well.
“I can’t just put all my eggs in one basket — the U.S. can’t just be my only option,” she said.
On Sept. 15, another federal rule changing the legal framework governing many international students’ eligibility to reside in the U.S. will go into effect. According to the Federal Register, F-1 students and J-1 exchange visitors, who have long been admitted for “duration of status” while maintaining lawful student or exchange status, will instead receive fixed periods of admission. Students who need to remain beyond that authorized period — for example, to complete a longer degree program or pursue post-completion employment — will have to apply for an extension of status.
For a Dartmouth student whose academic trajectory may include a fifth year of their engineering degree, an off-term internship, study abroad or post-graduation employment, what can appear to be a technical change in federal regulations can reach into decisions about the D-Plan itself.
The constraints of immigration status can also reach into another central pillar of college life — freedom of expression.
In April 2025, international students told The Dartmouth that federal visa terminations had made them more reluctant to travel, publish political opinions or participate visibly in activism. The Dartmouth received requests from students on visas who wanted their names removed from previously published articles. Spare Rib, a feminist student magazine, temporarily removed its website while contributors reconsidered whether they wanted their writing publicly attributed to them.
These concerns were not confined to Dartmouth. In March 2025, immigration authorities detained Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk after the State Department revoked her visa; her attorneys argued that she was targeted for protected political expression, including her involvement in a student newspaper op-ed. At Stanford, similar fears led some international contributors to The Stanford Daily to decline assignments, seek removal of past work or leave the newspaper over concerns that political expression could jeopardize their immigration status.
Mateo said political activism has never been a significant personal interest, and he has not avoided posting or protesting because of his visa. However, he has heard warnings given to international students about being careful with public political expression.
“I definitely have heard advice to avoid being overly ‘political’ in public,” he said.
For women’s, gender and sexuality studies professor Mingwei Huang, whose scholarship examines race and global migration, that uncertainty exposes a difficult question for universities that treat free expression as a central value, such as Dartmouth.
International students have always experienced some degree of immigration “precarity,” because their ability to work, study and remain in the United States depends upon maintaining a particular legal status, Huang said. Recent federal actions have made that contingency increasingly difficult to ignore.
“There’s certainly a chilling effect in terms of what will be next,” Huang said.
At Dartmouth, that question exists alongside a renewed institutional emphasis on dialogue and ideological diversity. The College has increasingly framed open exchange across political differences as central to campus life, including through Dartmouth Dialogues. But the formal ability to speak, Huang said, does not mean that every student experiences the consequences of speaking in the same way.
“Certain forms of speech have been directly targeted — specific political views,” Huang said. “We’ve seen certain visas revoked in connection with specific speech.”
“For whom is open expression or free speech or dialogue a privilege or a luxury, and who cannot access that on campus?” Huang posed.
Questions about speech ultimately lead back to a broader question about the meaning of a “global university” — and the conditions under which international students are able to participate fully in one.
International students are not only recipients of a Dartmouth education but participants in the academic and everyday labor of the College, Huang said.
“They’re students and they’re workers and they’re members of the community,” Huang said.
That presence, Huang argued, is part of what makes a liberal arts institution genuinely global. Students learn about the world not only by studying abroad or reading about other countries, but also by sharing classrooms, residence halls and organizations with people whose experiences were formed elsewhere.
The challenge for Dartmouth is that the College’s power over that global community has limits.
Dartmouth can provide financial aid, immigration advisers and legal assistance. In April 2025, Dartmouth established a fund providing up to $2,000 toward immigration attorney consultations for affected students and employees. College President Sian Leah Beilock later told The Dartmouth that the College would do everything possible “within the bounds of the law” to support international community members.
The qualifier is important. Dartmouth cannot issue a visa. It cannot decide whether a student is admitted at a border crossing. It cannot determine federal work authorization or guarantee that immigration rules will remain unchanged for the duration of a four-year degree.
It can, however, influence what living within that uncertainty feels like.
“It’s not only the job of OVIS to make sure that our non-citizen students feel supported and that they belong on campus,” Huang said. “It’s everyone’s work.”
In an email statement, College spokesperson Jana Barnello echoed Huang’s characterization of international student support as a broader institutional responsibility.
“International students are integral to the Dartmouth community,” Barnello wrote. “They bring perspective, talent and energy that shape campus life in ways that benefit everyone here.”
Barnello wrote that supporting international students is a “campus-wide effort,” with OVIS serving a central role. Each international student has a designated OVIS adviser, she wrote, and the office offers individual advising, workshops, question-and-answer sessions and other programming. OVIS also coordinates with ISEO, the Undergraduate Dean’s Office, Financial Aid, Housing and other College offices.
Olamosu similarly wrote that recent uncertainty has required collaboration across Dartmouth. ISEO has worked with other offices to provide leave-term housing for students unable or reluctant to travel home, support seniors affected by delayed post-graduation work authorization processing and reimburse students traveling to required biometrics appointments, among other initiatives.
“International students understandably feel stress and confusion trying to navigate and keep up with the changes,” Olamosu wrote.
For incoming international students, current students recommend paying close attention to OVIS guidance and seeking professional advice when questions carry legal consequences. Olamosu also emphasized the network surrounding those formal resources. ISEO recruits student leaders to serve as peer mentors and works with faculty and staff to help students transition into life at Dartmouth and in the United States, she wrote.
Mateo emphasized developing relationships early — not as a transactional form of networking, but as a way to learn from people who have navigated the same unfamiliar systems before them.
“It’s not just knowing all the answers, but actually knowing people,” he said.
Those people have also defined what Dartmouth means to him.
“Home for me is not another place, but the people you share it with,” Mateo said. “I think I can call Dartmouth home.”
Nadia’s advice came from a more difficult summer. Following changes in visa policy and trying to anticipate what they might mean for her future consumed months she wishes she had spent differently.
“I’ve spent half of my summer just not enjoying myself and being depressed about all of these visa situations,” she said.
But she no longer believes uncertainty should be allowed to consume the experience it threatens.
“Trust your acceptance and trust that you’ve been brought here for a reason — to do great things,” Nadia said. “Stay happy in the moment.”
The regulations will determine some of what international students are able to do here. They don’t need to determine whether this becomes home.
Haley S. Rodriguez ’29 is a reporter with roots in New York City. She is studying history and biology and enjoys long-distance running, reading and sailing.
