Our Diverse Student Body
More than 780 students are enrolled at Thomas Jefferson. Because of its multiple programs of study, the law school has a diverse mix of students ranging from young adults recently graduating from top colleges throughout the country to older, second-career students who bring a wealth of professional and personal experience to the classroom. Recently enrolled students have included physicians, nurses, FBI agents, real estate brokers, stockbrokers, engineers, accountants, flight attendants, chefs, musicians and members of the United States Armed Forces.
Typically, more than half of the entering class comes from outside of California, making Thomas Jefferson School of Law a geographically diverse law school. We also take pride in the racial, ethnic, gender and sexual orientation diversity of the student body.
Our Fall 2007 entering class is the most diverse in Thomas Jefferson's history and nearly 47 percent of the class are students of color. They hail from 26 states (from Alaska to New Jersey), Puerto Rico and the Cherokee and Mohegan nations. They were born in 20 countries plus the US, including the Ukraine, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Germany, Guatemala, Iran, Japan, Latvia, the Philippines, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Puerto Rico, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Viet Nam.
The new class represents more than 115 different undergraduate institutions and more than 100 students have been out of school for at least two years. Some are active duty or retired military, some are the first in their families to attend college and some are married with families of their own. Each student has his or her own unique and valuable contribution to make at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Together, our students weave a rich and vibrant tapestry of perspectives and experiences from which we all can learn and benefit.
The Campus Community
Thomas Jefferson School of Law places great emphasis on creating a caring, supportive and engaged campus community. Our Student Services Office offers support in a number of ways, from organizing social and informational events to bring students together with faculty and staff to helping with housing and other needs to working with the Student Bar Association and our more than 30 other student organizations. Our Student Services team of advisors is readily available to provide individualized support and counseling as needed. All of the departments on the Thomas Jefferson campus will gladly assist students in all ways they possibly can, whether it's helping with transcripts, financial assistance or technical problems with laptops. We have special academic programs, such as our new Cognitive Academic Protocol (CAP) program to help our students achieve success in law school. We have a cafe, bookstore and student lounge on campus for the convenience and comfort of our students. We even have two professional psychologists available to offer free counseling to students during times of stress or for other personal reasons.
Groups of students, faculty, staff and alumni routinely volunteer their time in a number of community service projects, ranging from on-campus blood drives to working with underprivileged children to beach clean-ups. We are particularly proud of these projects because they suggest a level of commitment to others that bodes well for the future of the legal profession and because they reflect the positive attitude that our students have about their experience at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and in San Diego. Recognizing this special quality for two years in a row the Princeton Review ranked Thomas Jefferson School of Law fifth in the nation for quality of on-campus life in 1999 and 2000. The category included the sense of community among students, the lack of competitiveness among students and the degree of student-faculty interaction.
It's hard to imagine another law school where the faculty and staff care so much about the whole student. Through our coordinated outreach approach as well as our programs and amenities, we strive to place our students first in everything we do. We invite you to learn more about student life at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in this section of the website.